Chairman of Hockey New Zealand Dean Ellwood announced today the resignation of Hilary Poole as chief executive of Hockey New Zealand and the Hockey Foundation, following Poole’s appointment as chief executive of Netball New Zealand.
“While we are very sad to see Hilary go, this is a career progression for her and she leaves with our very best wishes and huge appreciation of what she has done to lead the development and expansion of our sport at both community and high performance levels,” said Ellwood.
“Hockey is in a much stronger place than it was four years ago at a similar stage in the Olympic cycle. We have a strong family of commercial and funding partners, hockey’s profile has grown, we are developing major events, the Future Black Sticks are on the way to their Junior World Cups, and the Black Sticks have both vastly improved their world rankings and have world class coaches,” said Ellwood.
Although excited by the bigger challenge at Netball New Zealand, Poole is disappointed to be leaving her outstanding team.
“I am hugely excited to be given the opportunity to lead netball as it is such an important sport for New Zealand, and I look forward to the challenges this will bring. The tough part is that I am very sad to leave my team at Hockey New Zealand who are an amazingly talented and committed group of people and my respective Boards who I respect hugely. However, I won’t be far away, and I have every confidence hockey will continue to go from strength to strength,” said Poole.
Ellwood confirmed that Poole will leave Hockey New Zealand in early October and the recruitment process to replace her will begin shortly.
Source: Press Release Hockey New Zealand
