Newcastle United in the market for 'world-class' duo as CEO confirms talks after high-profile exit
Newcastle United CEO David Hopkinson is looking to make a number of ‘world-class’ appointments behind the scenes at St James’ Park.
David Hopkinson has set out his ambition to make Newcastle United one of the best clubs in world football by 2030.
Hopkinson was appointed as Newcastle’s new chief executive officer in September and has been conducting a 100 day review of the club which is now nearing completion. The CEO will submit a plan to Newcastle’s ownership next week regarding the next steps for the club to take with the hope of progress.
The Canadian, whose previous venture in football came as Real Madrid’s head of global partnerships between 2018 and 2020, believes Newcastle can not only win the Premier League but become one of the top clubs in world football within the next five years.
Four years into the takeover led by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, Newcastle have qualified for the Champions League twice and ended a 70-year domestic trophy drought. But the significant progress hasn’t been linear and the club are still some way short of the so-called Premier League ‘big six’ in terms of revenue.
There are genuine doubts that Newcastle will be able to build on their success of last season this time around as they currently sit 13th in the Premier League table after 14 games.
But Hopkinson is looking at the bigger picture and how he can help the club grow into a global force filled with world-class talent on and off the pitch.
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Newcastle United eye ‘world-class’ talent
When asked about how Hopkinson will achieve his ambitions at Newcastle, he told The Gazette: “We’re not going to win by accident. We’re going to win because we’ve been thoughtful and strategic about the organisation we’ve constructed, whose sole purpose is to win.
“We have some gaps. We have some folks that are world-class talents that don’t work here today.”
The CEO added that the club will be looking to make two significant ‘world-class’ C-suite additions in the near future as he assesses the future of the club’s commercial strategy following the departure of Peter Silverstone.
“Very shortly, we’ll be in the marketplace looking for a Chief Strategy Officer,” Hopkinson revealed. “We’ll be looking for a Chief Marketing Officer.
“With Pete departure [as Chief Commercial Officer], we’re going to take the opportunity to think about whether we should have someone focusing exclusively on revenue. Pete had an overview on marketing and revenue – we’re going to do that differently moving forward.
“Some of it is structure, but then some of it is, ‘Who is the talent that is in that structure?’ I want to make sure that we’re recruiting world-class talent. I don’t know how long that will take, but we’re having world-class talent put their hand up for us.
“I had two conversations [on Sunday] with folks that are saying, ‘Look, I see where this is going, I want to be part of it, it’s a rocket ship, I see that, and I want to get on that rocket ship’. They’re both foreigners.”
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David Hopkinson eyes improvement
Hopkinson was also honest in his assessment of where the club needs to improve and grow from its current state.
“We’re going to be very thoughtful and disciplined about some areas where we’re not world-class today,” he continued. “I’ll just use one example. Our digital ecosystem today is not world-class.