Professor Peter Thomas MBE
President
Peter was first elected President after his six year maximum term as Chairman ended in 2012.
His professional career embraced working both in the statutory and voluntary – not for profit – sectors in the very wide field of community education in South Wales and Buckinghamshire. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Senior Education Officer (Family & Community Services) and Head of the Arts, Sport & Recreation Service of Buckinghamshire County Council.
Peter was awarded the MBE for services to sport in 2004. In 2013 he was bestowed with the status of Honorary Professor by Buckinghamshire New University, and in 2014 was presented in a ceremony at St. James’s Palace, with the Sport + Recreation Alliance prestigious Emeritus Award. He is a former Buckinghamshire Ambassador and Fellow of the Institute of Leisure and Amenity Management.
Former Member of the GB Sports Council and Chairman of their National Children’s Play and Recreation Management Committee and Chairman of the Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre Committee. He was appointed by Sport England as Executive Chairman of National Cycling Centre, Manchester where there is a Peter Thomas Suite, and as their Board Member in the Manchester Sport & Leisure Trust and Executive Director of World Class Hockey.
He has served as a Member of the Executive Committee and then as a Director of the CCPR and since 2004 as a Vice President of the Sport and Recreation Alliance (formerly the CCPR). As Chairman and then as a Vice President of the British Sports Trust – Sports Leaders UK; as Interim Chief Executive of England Netball and as a Director and then Patron of the Youth Sport Trust and as Chairman of the National Hockey Foundation. He has also served as a Vice President of Sports Officials UK.
Linda C. Plowright-Pepper MBA, MSc
Vice President
Linda served as Leap’s Senior Independent Director and Board member from 2013-23
First trained as a Physical Education secondary school specialist, Linda entered the public community sport and recreation sector for the first 12 years of her career. She then worked in the private sector developing her specialism in HR and training before starting her own training and consultancy company, Almanac which she ran for some 10 years.
This took her to the National Training Organisation for Sport (the forerunner for the Sector Skills Council, Skills Active) and onto Sports Leaders UK where she has been Chief Executive for the last 11 years.
Greg Rutherford
MBE
Patron
Greg Rutherford, from Bletchley, became a household name when he won Gold on super Saturday at the London 2012 Olympics with a winning jump of 8m 31cm. His victory made him the fifth British athlete to hold Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth titles simultaneously, joining the ranks of Daley Thompson, Jonathan Edwards, Sally Gunnell and Linford Christie.
The journey for Rutherford began at Marshall Milton Keynes Athletic Club, taking his first leap into the club long jump pit around 1999.
Titles:
- 2012 Olympic Games long jump gold, 2016 Olympic Games long jump bronze
- 2015 World Championships long jump gold2014 and 2016 European Championships long jump gold,
- 2006 European Championships long jump silver2014 Commonwealth Games long jump gold, 2010 Commonwealth Games long jump silver
- 5 national titles
