Debbie Hewitt: "I want to be challenged. It’s how you progress."
Wednesday, June 4, 2025
Article summary
In an on-stage interview at the recent UEFA Grow conference on financial and HR management, Debbie Hewitt reflected on her first three years as chair of the English Football Association, offering a unique insight into how an extensive background in business shapes her approach.
Article top media content
Article body
What is the biggest contrast between your private sector roles and leading a high-profile sports governing body?
"In football, we start with an advantage. Everyone that works in the game loves it and this unites us. I think of The FA as three very different organisations: a governing body responsible for rules and regulations, 26 teams with the three lions on their badge and an organiser of iconic events at Wembley. Each part of the organisation works in quite different ways, but what unites us is our overarching vision for football."
What best practice business principles guide your leadership approach at the English FA?
"My organisational style is based on two principles which I hope are making The FA a better organisation. First, what’s the aim? Whether it is an opportunity we are trying to grasp or a problem we are trying to solve, it’s very important that we all understand the question we are trying to answer. Second, who’s accountable? There can be only one person. And if that’s always the CEO, that’s limiting. In my experience, the best organisations have a depth of management talent who are clear on their accountabilities."
“In football, we start with an advantage. Everyone that works in the game loves it and this unites us.”
What was your priority from day one at the English FA?
"It’s really important that you know how things work in practice. One of the first things I did was to ask somebody to show me how we generate revenue, how we decide to allocate funding and how we track the return on that investment. So, a picture illustrating our cash flows in and out of the organisation. If we are accountable for ensuring that the organisation works effectively and sustainably, we all need to understand where we are allocating funding and what we are choosing not to do, where there could be opportunities to improve revenues and where there might be threats to it.
"Once I understood that, it helped me to work with our executives to review and set priorities. I see my job as to run the board and our council and to work with them to shape our strategy. Our executives then communicate and deliver on that strategy. I try hard to give them space to do that, hopefully recognising when they need support to do so."
How did you go about building the right team?
"The people around the boardroom are a powerful statement of your leadership. I wanted to create a winning team. Finding talent, selecting it, appointing and developing it – that’s a huge privilege as a leader. I spend a lot of time communicating with people on our board, making sure they feel connected."
What do you expect of your financial and human resource directors?
"As the chair of any organisation, what you’re doing in setting strategy is determining how you use resources and in my mind, the two key resources in any business are financial and human. Along with the CEO, the financial and HR directors are important people who give me perspective and who I need to speak the truth to me.
"If this quartet of chair, CEO, finance and HR agree on everything, you probably have three too many people in the room! I’m always testing and checking their perspectives to get input on the big decisions. I want to be challenged about the assumptions I’m making. It’s how you progress, both as a person and as an organisation."
How do you bridge the gap between the boardroom and staff?
"The most important thing is not just to listen to what you’re told, but to go out and see it. For me, there is no substitute for getting out and about in an organisation. It’s two, often three tiers down where people are delivering. One of the hardest parts of the role can be getting people to speak up. I’m very conscious that having a title distorts what people might tell you, so you have to challenge what you hear and be sure you create a culture where people can speak up. I hope I make that easy for people."
How do you manage the level of scrutiny that comes with leading the English FA?
"The intensity is different to corporate life. If you have annual results to announce, it’s often news for a day. Then you get on with the day job. In contrast, the highs in sport are definitely higher and the lows are lower.
"I have found it is important to distinguish between what’s a genuine crisis and what’s not. Sometimes the crisis is what isn’t being written about!"
In such a competitive sector, how do you manage talent acquisition?
"I think an important part of my job as chair is to identify the talent that I need to get to know, internally and externally.
"The way organisations go about that has changed over the years. For example, AI has changed the way we can identify, assess and benchmark talent. The key thing is making sure that it provides information, not merely data. Ultimately though, there is no substitute for human judgement and I see getting out and about to meet talented people as a core part of my role. One of the biggest privileges of being a leader is being able to give talent an opportunity - taking a risk on those you see as up-and-coming talent. I never forget that someone took a risk on me in giving me my first leadership role and always offered me support."
What is your best memory of the past three years?
"Some of the great memories are seeing our national teams go far in international tournaments, but some of the truly special memories are seeing the good in football.
"I had no idea about the extent of football’s power to transform lives. Whether it’s watching a cerebral palsy team play, a Parkinson’s walking football team lift a trophy, or a school football final, I cannot begin to tell you the sense of pride it brings when someone explains to me how football has changed their life for the better.
"Those stories really help me if I’m having a bad day."
On the day you step down as chair, what will be your legacy?
"I’d like to think that more people will be playing, watching and volunteering in football than when I joined the organisation. That would be a great legacy. I also think one of the most visible legacies will be the person that succeeds me and how they continue the journey of progress for the association. I have the potential to serve for up to nine years at the English FA – and I am thoughtful about how I can use that time to leave a strong and effective board in place for my successor. We speak very openly about board succession."
The UEFA Grow Conference on financial and HR management was hosted by the Italian Football Federation in Rome on 7–8 May 2025
Debbie Hewitt: factfile
In June 2021, Debbie Hewitt was appointed as the first female chair of the English FA, formally taking up the role in January 2022. She was unanimously re-elected for a second term in May 2025 and has served as a FIFA vice-president since 2023. Debbie developed a passion for football by watching her father referee amateur matches.
Aged 62, she, is an experienced and successful businesswoman, having first worked in retail management, then as a group managing director in the automobile industry. As well as her roles in football, she is also the non-executive chair of Visa Europe and price comparison website comparethemarket.com.
Debbie holds an MBA and an honorary doctorate in business administration and was awarded an MBE in 2011 for services to business and the public sector.