Sara Sutcliffe (CEO) joined Table Tennis England as Interim Chief Executive in July 2013 and accepted the role permanently in February 2014. Prior to joining Table Tennis England Sara spent 12 years at the British Olympic Association as the Director of Legal and HR.
A qualified lawyer and recognised authority in sports law, Sara has contributed to written publications and spoken on numerous topics including governance, selection issues and anti doping.
Since joining Table Tennis England, Sara has played a lead role in restructuring the organisation to make it fit for purpose and relocating the head office to Milton Keynes.
Sandra Deaton (Chair) is a retired business director and started her professional career as a physical education teacher in 1971.
She has been involved in table tennis for more than 40 years at local, county, regional and national level, working in club development for most of that time.
She was the chair of the East Midland Region for almost 14 years, bringing together the development and coaching groups under one organisation, and was a member of Governing Body Management team from 2002 to 2007, taking on the vice chairmanship of selection and performance in July 2013.
Sandra has been involved with the organisation of a number of National Championships and was an integral part of the team delivering the two most recent English Opens. She was a member of the athlete services team for the London Olympics. Her daughter Nicola was five-times national champion and England No 1 for five consecutive years.
Susie Hughes (Deputy Chair) became the Vice-Chair of Communications at Table Tennis England in 2013, before being appointed to the Board in April 2014. She was elected unopposed as Deputy Chair in May 2014.
She began playing table tennis as a junior in Liverpool and has since played in several local leagues around the country, at county level for Lancashire, British League and in many veterans’ events.
Her career has focused in and around the media, as a journalist, a Government press officer, and a corporate communications consultant. She currently runs her own internet news site for small businesses and freelancers.
Susie is from Liverpool and is also deputy chairman of the Veterans’ English Table Tennis Society (VETTS).
Keith Thomas (Treasurer) is a Chartered Accountant with more than 30 years’ experience in private practice.
He has played competitive table tennis for more than 25 years and helped to found Hartlepool Table Tennis Club in 2003. The club is now a Premier 3 star Club.
Keith is a member of Cleveland County Table Tennis Association management committee, chairman of the disciplinary committee and team manager of the county junior squad.
He is a 3 star coach, coach tutor and assessor, tournament organiser and is currently working towards county umpire qualification.
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Non-executive directors
Simon Griew has more than 25 years’ experience in the energy industry, having held strategic and commercial roles for National Grid, the Department of Trade & Industry and The Institution of Gas Engineers and Managers.
A graduate of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, he has been Managing Director of his own consulting company since March 2013.
Simon has played table tennis for many years, competing in the Leamington and Coventry leagues and representing Warwickshire in the Veterans’ County Championship.
Phil Huggon is a marketing professional who has worked in senior positions for BP, Mars and Shell in the areas of marketing and change management.
He now holds a portfolio of non-executive directorships and Trustee roles, including with Alder Hey Hospital and Sports Leaders UK.
A former vice-chairman of the ETTA, Phil is from Cheshire and was a table tennis junior international for England.
Andrew Nixon, previously a Non-Executive Director of Table Tennis England, is a sports lawyer and a partner in the Sports Group at Sheridans.
He has handled high-profile dispute resolution and arbitration cases and has also carried out governance, commercial and regulatory work for several National Governing Bodies of sport.
He lives in London and has played both table tennis and cricket for Ireland.
Tom Purcell is retired and spent 33 years as a police officer, rising to the rank of Detective Chief Inspector and working on combating serious and organised crime.
Tom has played local league table tennis for the past 50 years playing in Manchester, London and Liverpool. He is also involved in local table tennis committees in the Liverpool and Lancashire areas
Tom is a former vice-chairman of Table Tennis England and is an international table tennis umpire. He umpired the men’s singles final at the London 2012 Olympics.
Kelly Skeggs is a qualified solicitor. Kelly, who is 25 and lives in Suffolk, studied at the University of East Anglia and at Anglia Ruskin University.
She is a talented table tennis player who is currently ranked No 25 in Table Tennis England’s Senior Women ranking list.
Kelly is the founder and a director of The Football People Ltd, which provides legal and administrative support to professional football clubs.
She was previously Company Secretary of Bristol City FC and has also worked for Hull City, Ipswich Town and Tottenham Hotspur.
Mike Smith, now retired, spent his career working for Leicester University and Nottingham University, where he held management roles, most recently as Senior Administrator of Information Services.
His involvement in table tennis began as club secretary for Leicester University TTC and encompasses a large variety of roles in club, league, county, regional, schools and disabled table tennis.
A former Table Tennis England Vice-Chairman, he is secretary of the British Table Tennis Association for people with Disabilities (BTTAD) and lives in Leicester.
Anna Lisa Tazartes is Italian by birth and has recently become a naturalised British Citizen.
She previously served on the senior management team of General Electric and two of its regulated subsidiaries for almost 20 years, most recently in the post of Marketing and Operations Director for GE Capital.
Since May 2013, she has been a director of Vathi Ltd, where she led the business transformation of one of the divisions of a major UK insurance intermediary.