Keynote Speakers

• The Rt Hon Richard Caborn
• Dimitrios L. Avramopoulos
• Philip Lane
• Jude Kelly
• Sir Robin Wales
• Professor Sir Alan Wilson

The Rt Hon Richard Caborn MP

The Rt Hon Richard Caborn, Member of Parliament for Sheffield Central, has served as Minister for Sport since June 2001. Born in October 1943, Richard was educated at Hurfield Comprehensive School, Granville College of Education and Sheffield Polytechnic. He went on to become a Trade Union official at Firth Brown Sheffield, Vice President of the Sheffield Trades Council, and a member of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union.

In 1979, Richard became Member of the European Parliament for Sheffield and, four years later, was elected to the House of Commons, where he helped to found the Parliamentary Anti-Apartheid Movement. He became Minister of State for the Regions, Regeneration and Planning at the Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions in 1997 and served as Minister for Trade at the Department for Trade and Industry between 1999 and 2001. He became a Privy Councillor in 1999.

Richard is a keen amateur sportsman, playing golf, football and cricket, and led the tour to South Africa of the House of Commons cricket team in 1995. He was involved in taking the World Student Games to his native Sheffield in 1991, as well as the successful bid to make Sheffield the key site in the UK Sports Institute network.

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Dimitrios L. Avramopoulos, Minister of Health and Social Solidarity, Greece, and founding president, World Union of Olympic Cities

Dimitrios Avramopoulos is now Minister of Health and Social Solidarity in the Greek government, and until February 2006 was Minister of Tourism. He was previously Mayor of Athens for the 10 years from 1994-2004 and successfully bid for and delivered the 2004 Games. He founded the World Union of Olympic Cities.

Born in Athens in 1953, Mr Avramopoulos studied Public Law and Political Science and International Organisation and has had a successful career in the Greek Diplomatic Service. In 1993, he resigned as Director of the Diplomatic Office of the Greek Prime Minister to stand for election as a member of the liberal New Democracy Party.

After a year in Parliament, Mr Avramopoulos was elected Mayor of Athens in October 1994, going on to be re-elected in 1998 in a landslide victory. Between 2000 and 2002 he was President of the Summit Conference of the Mayors of the World and, in 2002, he was responsible for founding the World Union of Olympic Cities, an IOC-approved NGO for which he remains executive president. In the 2004 general election, Mr Avramopoulos was elected as a New Democracy MP once more, going on to be appointed Minister of Tourism later that year.

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Philip Lane, Chief Executive, British Paralympic Association

Philip Lane is Chief Executive of the British Paralympics Association (BPA), responsible for leading and co-ordinating the development of elite disability sport in the UK, as well as the funding, management and organisation of the Great Britain Winter and Summer Paralympic Teams at the Paralympic Games.

Born in Gloucestershire in 1953, Philip became a talented rugby player before injury curtailed his career and saw him turn to coaching roles at Saracens, Blackheath and Southend RFCs. As an RFU Senior Coach, he successfully worked his way from local youth teams up to Head Coach of the England U18 squad. Alongside coaching, Philip studied for a Bachelor of Education degree in PE and a Masters in Management. He built up a successful career in education, first as a PE teacher and then as a head-master, before taking up his current role at the BPA in August 2001.

He was Chef de Mission for the GB Summer Paralympic Team in Athens 2004 and the Winter Paralympic Team in Salt Lake City in March 2002, and is currently planning the teams for the Winter Games in Torino 2006 and Summer Games in Beijing 2008. As a director of Paralympic World Cup Ltd, Philip has also contributed to the creation of the first multi-sport, ‘World Cup’ style Paralympic event outside the Paralympic Games.

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Jude Kelly OBE, Artistic Director, South Bank Centre and Chair for Culture and Education, London 2012 (LOCOG)

Jude Kelly is Artistic Director at London’s South Bank Centre and Chair of Culture and Education for the city’s successful Olympic bid.

In her 26-year career in the arts, Jude founded Solent People’s Theatre and Battersea Arts Centre. In 1986, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, before going on to become the first Artistic Director of the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, the country's largest regional theatre. Among many successes, her production of Singin’ in the Rain transferred twice to the National Theatre and was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Musical Production in 2001.

In 2002, Jude founded METAL, a collaborative arts organisation aiming to develop creative projects in a number of contexts, from regeneration to creative training. She was appointed Artistic Director of the South Bank in July 2005. She was awarded her OBE for services to the theatre in 1997.

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Sir Robin Wales, Mayor of the London Borough of Newham

Sir Robin Wales is the first directly elected Mayor of the London Borough of Newham and Chairman of the Association of London Government. Born in Kilmarnock in 1955, Robin studied Chemistry at the University of Glasgow. He moved to Newham in 1978 and began working locally for BT in management systems.

Robin served as a Newham councillor from 1982 to 1986 and again from 1992 until becoming Leader of Newham Council in 1995. In 2000, he became Chairman of the Association of London Government and was awarded a knighthood in recognition of his services to local government.

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Professor Sir Alan Wilson, DSc, LLD, FBA, Director-General for Higher Education, Department for Education and Skills.

Sir Alan Wilson is Director General for Higher Education at the DfES. He is also a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London. After graduating in Mathematics from Cambridge University, Alan converted to the social sciences via a programme of research focussing on cities. In 1970, he was appointed Professor of Urban and Regional Geography at the University of Leeds and was the co-founder of GMAP Ltd.

In 1991, he was appointed Vice-Chancellor at the University of Leeds. Elected as FBA in 1994 and an AcSS in 2000, he was knighted for services to higher education in 2001. A member of the Economic and Social Research Council from 2000 to 2004, Sir Alan took up his current post at the DfES in February 2004.

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