Jane Purdon – Episode 32
Jane Purdon is the CEO of Women in Football, a membership network of women and men dedicated to driving the beautiful game forward together and equalling the playing field for women on and off the pitch.
Having qualified as a lawyer, in 2001 Jane was appointed Club Secretary and Solicitor at Sunderland AFC, the club’s first-ever in-house lawyer and one of the first such appointments by a Premier League club. In 2005 she joined the Premier League, enjoying 10 eventful years where she rose to become the Premier League’s Director of Governance.
While at the Premier League, Jane had responsibility for maintaining and enforcing the Premier League rulebook, with a particular focus on the rules concerning the transfer system, club ownership, club profitability and sustainability, and club licensing. She was the Premier League’s representative on several committees of UEFA, FIFA and the Association of European Leagues.
Jane joined UK Sport as Head of Governance and Leadership in 2015, working with the UK’s Olympic and Paralympic programmes to ensure high standards of governance. At UK Sport, Jane worked closely with Sport England to write A Code for Sports Governance' and lead its implementation across the British national governing bodies of sport.
She was appointed as Independent Chair of the Professional Game Academy Audit Company in November 2020, a company established by the Premier League, The FA and the EFL to support the development of the world's leading academy system and provide quality assurance to all club academies in the male professional game. Jane holds this role alongside her position at Women in Football.
In this episode of In Her Corner, we talk to Jane about learning to lead, white privilege and why there’s cause to be optimistic about the future of the women’s game.
You can listen to the trailer for Jane’s episode using the player below:
Jane’s full episode will be released on Wednesday 12 May and will be available to listen to on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other major streaming platforms.
Podcast theme track by Wayne Urquhart and Mix Engineering by Nick Murphy.
