Leaders Worth Knowing Podcast

Fresh from a trip to Cannes, to take in the brands, celebrities and agencies this week at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, James Emmett provides David Cushnan with a postcard of who was there and why. Elsewhere, what does Royal Ascot’s formal dresscode say about the event? And is Ascot’s grandstand facility one of the most underrated in all of sport?  Plus as the area around the Leaders st...

The Cannes Debate is a three-part series exploring sport’s growing role at the centre of media, marketing and culture. Hosted by Leaders Editorial Director James Emmett and Alex Charkham, who runs strategy and consulting for global sports and entertainment marketing agency, Fuse, the series digs into why sport has become one of the most powerful tools in modern brand-building. Recorded live from C...

What's the point of Cannes for the sports industry? As the marketing world prepares to descend on the French Riviera for the annual 'festival of creativity' that is Cannes Lions, sport has becoming increasingly central.   Kenny Annan-Jonathan, the newly installed Cannes Lions Sports Director, joins co-hosts James Emmett and Alex Charkham, who runs strategy and consulting for global sports and ente...

With the World Cup in full swing, James Emmett and David Cushnan pause and reflect on the hydration breaks, introduced for this year’s tournament, and the new commercial avenue they’ve opened up - and ponder where they might be seen next, as fans and broadcasters, like them or not, get used to the concept. They also reflect on this week’s conversation with Louise Young, F1’s Chief Race Promotion O...

Louise Young is responsible for the F1 calendar. The Australian lawyer and her team manage the motorsport series' relationships with promotor organisations around the world.   They are responsible for bringing in new races onto the calendar; for negotiating contracts with existing race promotors; and for ensuring that host venues meet all the requirements - safety, racing, logistical, commercial,...

As the Fifa World Cup finally kicks off in Mexico City, James Emmett and David Cushnan run the rule over the major business storylines, commercial implications and ever-present politics to keep eyes on in the opening phase of the tournament.   Building on the first edition of Scroll Stoppers, our new series on digital content with Ten Toes, they consider who the breakout content stars in and aroun...

What does it actually take to win on social at the biggest tournament in sport?    In this opening episode of Scroll Stoppers - a new series from the Leaders Worth Knowing podcast exploring how to make an impact with digital content - Henry Breckenridge, Senior Content Manager at Leaders is joined by Ten Toes Founder & CEO Ben Weisfeld to unpack how the industry is gearing up for a World Cup l...

In the red afterglow of Arsenal’s Premier League title win and celebratory parade in North London, James Emmett and David Cushnan shine a light on Josh Kroenke’s role in the multi-club, cross-sport success story that is Kroenke Sports and Entertainment. They also reflect on the winners elsewhere across Europe as the club football season ends. Also on the show, reflections on James’ conversation wi...

Anurag Dahiya has been Chief Commercial Officer at the ICC since 2020. He is responsible for all revenue generating activities at cricket's global governing body and looks after a portfolio of events ranging from short format T20 world cups through to newly established World Test Championships. Formerly of Singtel and ESPN Star Sports, Dahiya joined us as a speaker for the latest edition of the In...

This week, London is the stage for the third edition of World Sevens Football, the pioneering 7-a-side women's football competition, and Co-Founders Jennifer Mackesy and Julie Uhrman broke into preparations to join David Cushnan in the studio to discuss the concept and its creation. Eight WSL clubs will compete at Brentford's Gtech Community Stadium for a prize pot of $1.5 million.   Mackesy, who...

India’s appetite and readiness to host major global events was one of the main topics at this week’s Indian Sports Summit in Bangalore, and James Emmett is on the ground with the mood and the colour from on and off stage. With the IPL in full swing, there’s the latest on the league’s media rights planning and what its strategy might be in a changing domestic market, and James has the inside line o...

Ross Hutchins is six months into the role as CEO of the International Tennis Federation (ITF). A former player, Hutchins retired in 2014 and went on to play numerous player-focused roles at the ATP. He replaced Kelly Fairweather in the role as the top executive at the global governing body of tennis in October last year. He joins the show this week on the back of news that Visa has renewed as a pa...

The quest to influence and monetise audiences is the core mission for much of the sports industry, and this week James Emmett and David Cushnan reflect on James’ podcast conversation with Liz Wynn, Chief Supporter Officer, at the Guardian - and in particular how the organisation has used newsletters to build direct, meaningful relationships with readers. It sparks a discussion about whether teams...

This episode is a masterclass in driving digital revenue through structured and sophisticated commercialization methods, purpose-led campaigns, and behavioural-psychology informed techniques.   Liz Wynn is the Chief Supporter Officer at the Guardian Media Group. Having had a varied career in telecoms and broadcast media - working at the likes of Orange, EE, and Sky, she joined the Guardian in 2023...

On the eve of the Giro d’Italia, the first grand tour of the cycling year, James Emmett and David Cushnan unpack professional cycling’s business model and examine the tensions at the heart of it. Reflecting on James’ conversation with INEOS-Grenadiers CCO Tom Hill, they discuss the dominant role of Tour de France-organiser ASO in the sport, and the efforts the UCI WorldTour teams are making to try...

As of the start of the 2026 Giro d’Italia this weekend, the INEOS Grenadiers cycling team will be known as Netcompany-INEOS. Last week, the team - one of the most successful in elite road cycling - announced a new sponsorship deal with Danish tech and AI firm Netcompany. INEOS, team owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s giant chemicals company, had yielded the main naming position for a deal reported as worth...

After a record-shattering London Marathon, James Emmett and David Cushnan take a look at the ways in which marathons are being packaged and commercialised - and why, after 1.1 million applications this year in London, there's such a thirst for participating.   They examine plans for next year's London Marathon to become a two-day, two-marathon affair; London Marathon Events' recent acquisition of...

Table tennis hits London and the podcast this week, as the city hosts the World Team Table Tennis Championships and Table Tennis England CEO Sally Lockyer joins the show.  The Championships which include 64 men's and 64 women's teams are competing at two London venues, the Copper Box and Wembley's OVO Arena over the next fortnight. Lockyer has been front and centre of the preparations, heading up...

After a week dominated by speculation about LIV Golf’s future, amid a swirl of rumour about PIF’s continued financial support, James Emmett and David Cushnan attempt to unpick what’s happening and why. Leaning on the conversation with R&A CEO Mark Darbon this week, they consider what the impact and legacy of LIV Golf is, as the PGA Tour, now stewarded by Brian Rolapp, proposes changes to its s...

The R&A is one of golf's governing bodies, guardian of the rulebook, and the organiser of the world's oldest Major, The Open Championship. As CEO for the past 18 months, Mark Darbon has been busy reframing the organisation's vision to grow the game around the world, and diving into the disrupted, sometimes fractured, world of professional golf. In this extended conversation, David Cushnan chat...

Gary Neville’s The Overlap, now majority owned by Global, has acquired the watchalong YouTube channels run by Mark Goldbridge, a significant moment in the independent football content space. James Emmett and David Cushnan dissect this week’s news and consider what Global, the radio and outdoor advertising giant, is buying as it builds out its sport and podcast arms. There’s also reflections on the...

With the US taking the lion's share of the headlines, you could be forgiven for forgetting that Mexico and Canada are also co-hosting the upcoming Fifa men’s World Cup. While the US will host 78 of the 104 games, Mexico and Canada will each stage 13 games, in Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Vancouver and Toronto. On the sidelines of March’s Business of Soccer event in Atlanta, David Cushnan s...

The first major of the golfing season takes place this weekend. It's a fixture on the global event calendar, the first real harbinger of a major sporting summer, and arguably the finest example of sports marketing strategy in action. In this episode of the Leaders Worth Knowing podcast, James Emmett is joined by MSQ Sports + Entertainment founding partner Steve Martin to pinpoint why and how the M...

Arthur Blank remains a compelling public speaker, even into his ninth decade. The Atlanta sports doyen was one of a clutch of US sports owners on stage and wandering the halls at the Business of Soccer event at Mercedes-Benz Stadium last week. David Cushnan was also there, and on his return to the Leaders studio in London, he teams up again with James Emmett to talk about what makes the billionair...

With the World Cup just a few weeks away, tournament and team sponsors are rolling out activation plans across the United States, Canada and Mexico.   A trio of senior brand executives sat down with David Cushnan, on the sidelines of Sports Business Journal and Leaders’ Business of Soccer event in Atlanta last week, to run through their activation plans, hopes and targets for the upcoming tourname...