Oliver Finlay joined Cambridge Wilkinson as a senior advisor. After 23 years as a performance director, performance coach and physiotherapist in various sports including soccer (English, Scottish, Thai Premier Leagues, national teams), basketball (Turkish Basketbol Süper Ligi, Euro League), motorsport (Formula 1), athletics (Team GB), hockey (NHL), tennis (ATP, ITF) and rugby (Pro 14, national team), Finlay accepted a Ph.D. position at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Finlay’s Ph.D. research focused on identifying the objective markers of success and processes of change and performance management relating to high-performance sports organizations around the world. Applying this knowledge to develop strategic plans for investors seeking to buy sports teams, Finlay refined the parameters for the assessment criteria used to establish current valuations and growth potential of professional sports organizations.
Finlay’s interest in how sport could influence communities developed whilst representing Scotland’s national field and indoor lacrosse teams at several world and European championships, latterly as captain. Since his school days, Finlay contributed to the development of the grassroots game as a coach and later as the national performance director. Finlay’s purpose is to support individuals, high-performance sports organizations and communities in reaching their full potential and achieving sustained success, through the medium of sports, science, health and wellbeing. Finlay is responsible for the strategic planning and identification of assets for the Beautiful Game Group.
“Oliver’s experience in the Sports & Entertainment sector will help bolster our effectiveness in the space at it continues to scale. We are seeing growing investor appetite in the sector for a wide variety of macro and micro reasons,” Rob Bolandian, co-founder and global head of investment banking at Cambridge Wilkinson, said.
