BIOGRAPHY

Jan Paterson OBE | Managing Director - Sport, NEOM 

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As NEOM’s Managing Director of Sport, Jan Paterson is responsible for the strategy to create a unique sporting ecosystem from grassroots to high performance that includes asset development, global partnerships and world-class events driving a sport economy in a new region. 

  

Over the last 30 years, Jan’s experience in the sport industry, working with both the private and public sectors has delivered a track record of dynamic leadership having held various leadership roles in both the Olympic and Commonwealth Games Movements, including board member, CEO, strategic advisor, and Chef de Mission. Leading policies and programs for women and young people in sport with a focus on education, mentoring and managing has continued to be a foundation stone in her career.

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As a board member of NEOM Sports Club, she has helped to steer the football team to success in their promotion to the YELO first division in the first season, with the women’s team tipped to be promoted to the Women’s Saudi Pro League in 2025/2026. She has also pioneered the foundations of sport technology in the creation of a unique, digital footprint of NEOM’s underwater landscape.

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NEOM is an accelerator of human progress and a vision of what a New Future might look like. It is a region in northwest Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea being built from the ground up as a living laboratory. One of the aims is to foster innovation in growing industries, such as sport tech and adventure sports, and by placing sport and physical wellbeing at the centre of lifestyles become one of the most active societies globally.