24th October 2023
| Mallory Gray
Cricket Wales today announces that Chief Executive Officer, Leshia Hawkins, will step down from her role in early 2024 to take up the newly-created position of Managing Director, Recreational Game at The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).
The role will see Leshia become a member of the ECB Leadership Group, where she will also be charged with ensuring an integrated approach across England and Wales with regards to the delivery of the ECB’s Participation & Growth strategy.
She will be tasked with further strengthening relationships with a diverse range of stakeholders across the recreational game – including Cricket Boards, County Cricket Foundations and the ECB’s Charity partners – to ensure that resources are efficiently utilised and that every region is supported to deliver recreational cricket to the best of its ability across its communities.
She will also support the new Recreational Game Committee (RGC), which has responsibility to provide strategic advice to the ECB Board in relation to recreational cricket.
Leshia joined Cricket Wales in February 2020, having worked previously at the ECB, in both commercial and cricket development roles. She is a playing member of The MCC, recently joining their Women’s Players & Fixtures Sub-Committee, and she sits on the Board of Glamorgan Cricket, through her Cricket Wales role. She is also a non-Executive Director England Athletics.
Commenting on the confirmation of her appointment, Leshia said: “I am extremely proud to have been asked to take on this role, especially at such a critical moment for our sport. I am acutely cognisant of the challenges ahead, but I also see enormous opportunities for the recreational game to further grow its reach and relevance, and to underpin all of cricket’s objectives in the coming years.
“While I am, of course, very sad to be leaving a job, team - and country - that I adore, I know the game in Wales will continue to flourish as it has, despite the myriad external challenges, over the last four years.
“I feel deeply privileged to be taking up this new post, and I look forward to playing the fullest possible role I can to ensure that cricket achieves its goal of becoming the most inclusive team sport in England and Wales.”
Interim Chair of Cricket Wales, Dr Tim Masters, added, “On behalf of the Board of Cricket Wales, I would like to congratulate Leshia on her appointment to MD, Recreational Game. Over the last 4 years she has demonstrated outstanding leadership, firstly navigating Welsh Cricket through the challenge of the pandemic and then delivering excellence in all areas of participation particularly in making our game more diverse and inclusive.
“We thank her for all she has done for Cricket Wales and wish her all the best for the future. We know she will do an outstanding job in her new role at ECB.”
Richard Gould, ECB Chief Executive Officer, said: “We’re delighted to be able to bring Leshia into our team to lead such a crucial area of the game.
“There were a number of very capable candidates and she was the outstanding choice. The whole game will benefit from her expertise, her experience and her enthusiasm to take cricket forward.
“We know that cricket can have a vital social impact, and by supporting inclusive recreational cricket communities we can both bring more people into the game and also help sustain the future of the sport.”