Board
Jim Wilkinson
Chairman - Northamptonshire FA
Jim Wilkinson has been in Football with Northamptonshire FA from 1983 when registering as a Referee eventually getting onto Football League as an Assistant Referee. Jim served previously as Vice Chairman of the Association for several years. He is married to Helen for 42years and counting and have three children.
Jim has an Honours Degree in Earth Science and is a Fellow of the Geological Society. He works as Contracts Manager for a large national house building company.
Christian Smith
Chief Executive Officer - Northamptonshire FA
Christian has a long and varied career in football, the highlights of which were successful spells with Leicester City FC as General Manager and the Professional Footballers’ Association where he spent 13 years as Commercial Director.
Now in his third year with the County FA, Christian leads the NFA Team in delivering against FA targets and the needs of Leagues, Clubs and Players in the County.
With a particular passion for disability football, he also sits on the Board of the Great Britain Disability Football Association.
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Gerald Hawthorn
Council Elected Director- Northamptonshire FA
Alex Brooks
Independent Non-Executive Director (HR) - Northamptonshire FA
Alex is a sports and employment lawyer, with several years’ experience advising on employment and HR issues in particular.
Alex has been a solicitor at specialist sports law firm Onside Law since 2018, having previously trained and qualified into the Employment department at Penningtons Manches before joining Thomas Cooper in their Employment and Sports team.
Alex is passionate about grassroots sport and plays in weekly 5 and 7 a side football leagues, as well as being involved with a number of charities that use sport to help children and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds. Additionally, Alex is a member of the Employment Lawyers’ Association and Women in Football.
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John Moriarty
Council Elected Director-Northamptonshire FA
Salim Bhaiji
Independent Non-Executive Director (Finance) – Northamptonshire FA
Salim is a management consultant at KPMG specialising in Finance Transformation. In a 13-year career he has worked across a number of large Financial Institutions including Allianz, Aviva, AIG and Barclays. He is also a qualified accountant.
In his current role he leads Finance Change projects across teams including FP&A, Business Partnering and Financial Reporting. This involves work covering Planning, Budgeting & Forecasting, Cost Reduction, Org Design, Business Process Review and Regulatory Driven Change.
Salim is a life-long Newcastle United fan and is also starting his FA coaching path for which he is Level 1 qualified.
Neil Griffin
Council Elected Director -Northamptonshire FA
Richard Alsop
Board Safeguarding Champion
Richard Alsop is a Director in the NHS, and has an MBA in health services management. His passion for football was ignited at a young age, and he played junior and adult football in the county, before then coaching junior sides until a few years ago. He is a season ticket holder at Northampton Town.
Raff Miah
Inclusion
Raff works for BT as a Regional Account Manager in the security and alarming Industry. Raff works very closely with Alarm Receiving Centres (ARC) and Installation companies. He provides commercial support and own the key relationships with large and small corporate companies, he can also provide technical training and remote service access for the Installers, manage accounts and contracts with ARC’s.
In January of 2016, Alongside other individuals Raff set up a football team called Northants United. They wanted to be able to set up a team where ‘all’ would feel welcome but with a high interest of getting the BAME players more interested and more involved in a structured club and team. They also had another focus to get the young individuals to focus on something more positive and hopefully eliminate any negative involvements relating to drugs or anti-social behaviour. Furthermore, Raff is a Level 1 qualified coach and taking an interest in doing his referee qualification too.
Raff hopes to add value to the IAG board by helping and assisting where possible to ensure inclusion is at the heart of any and every club, with also a scope to raise the awareness of Inclusion across to a broader level.