The leading Manchester United executives who oversaw soaring commercial revenues and then left after Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s major cost-cutting programme have been hired by Tottenham Hotspur.
The team led by United’s former commercial star Victoria Timpson is comprised of many of the club’s former leading women in the executive team, including Ali Edge and Florence Lafaye.
While they were not public figures under the previous regime they drove United’s big commercial shirt deals with the likes of TeamViewer and Snapdragon, which in turn helped finance the signings of a series of managers.
Timpson, who left United last summer after 16 years, was most recently its chief executive of global alliances and partnerships. She led the club’s central London office in pushing up commercial revenues – by 17 per cent in her final year.
Timpson was briefly succeeded by Lafaye, United’s commercial director, who then also departed after 13 years with United. Edge worked at United for 29 years, a longer stint than even Sir Alex Ferguson, and was most recently a director in Timpson’s department. She was chiefly responsible for retaining commercial deals.
The trio, along with another former United commercial executive Tom Liston-Jones, who was head of data and strategy, have established a new 20-strong agency, which will be known as Altius8. It has agreed a deal with Spurs chairman Levy with the intention that they will have the same transformative effect on the club’s revenues as the team did at United.
It is understood that a whole range of sponsorship assets will be overseen by Timpson and her colleagues although it is not clear yet whether that might include a potential naming rights deal for Spurs’ new stadium. A title sponsor is still yet to be sealed more than six years after the £1.2 billion stadium opened.
The new Spurs stadium has a F1-branded karting track, as well as the multi-use function that allows it to stage concerts and regular season NFL games by storing the football surface in a subterranean chamber. The arrival of Timpson and Altius8 along with new chief executive Vinai Venkatesham represents a new direction for Spurs under Levy.
(Daily Telegraph - Sam Wallace)
