CEO of the Shrewsbury Town Foundation Jamie Edwards has taken on the additional role of Chief Business Development Officer at the football club.
Jamie joined the Shrewsbury Town Foundation eight years ago and has overseen its growth both as a charity and a business as a whole.
Now, as Shrewsbury Town looks to increase its revenue, Jamie has taken on this new role to help the club reach that goal.
In this interview, Jamie discussed his old role, what his new job entails, the targets he's set and how he intends to reach them, and what changes are being made within the foundation now his efforts are being split between the charity and the club.
On what his role was previously:
"My role previously - and it will still be carrying on in some form - was CEO of the foundation. That covered everything from interacting and engaging in the community as well as the long-term strategic direction of what the foundation does."
On his new role and what it entails:
"I'm Chief Business Development Officer and I report directly to Brian [Caldwell] the CEO. I'll be helping him out with business development around the football club. That could be growing revenue where we can through to engagement with fans and anything else that is on the plate of the CEO on a daily basis. I'll be helping him out where I can."
On why the job has been created:
"If you look at any football club, it's all about putting as much quality onto the pitch as you can, and to do that, football clubs need to raise revenue away from a matchday through better partnerships, through more retail sales or through any other format they can.
"The clubs that get that right are the ones who are successful on the pitch so I think it's the next forward step at the football club. We've been at this stadium for 15 years now and this is the next phase of what the stadium can do and how we can use it to generate income to support what happens on the pitch."
On the targets he's set and how success will be measured:
"Targets have been set and ultimately, we want to increase revenue levels. We're looking at the benchmark of where we're currently at and what the realistic targets of what we can do are.
"I think one of the frustrating things with this role is that things will take time. There will be a few quick wins, but the seeds we put in place will mostly generate revenue six, 12 or 18 months down the line while we get things done."
How he plans to achieve these targets:
"Obviously I'm looking at every partnership we currently have and partnerships for the future too. Working really hard and closely with all the staff here across every department is where I think we need to optimise how we work. The staff who work here are exceptional but a lot of the resources go out onto the pitch, meaning resources across a lot of departments are limited. If I can support that moving on quicker and grow each department, then that means we're making progress."
On changes that will be made to the hierarchy in the foundation:
"There will be (changes). I'm talking to the board of trustees about what will happen and how things will work day-to-day. We're in really early days with this role but the foundation is in a really, really strong position and it's grown over the past few years. We've got some really good staff who will have the opportunity to step up. There will be a long-term plan put in place, but we want to see how things settle down first so we can keep both the football club and the foundation moving forward at pace."
On the foundations being put in place:
"I've done lots of work with certain partners already. There will be stuff coming out in the near future but most of my work is being geared toward the start of next season. Like I said before, it takes six to 12 months to get some of this stuff over the line. You'll see little seeds growing in these early days though."
