Grace Blue Partnership Launches Sports, Media & Entertainment Practice

Grace Blue, the global executive search firm, has opened its new Sports, Media & Entertainment practice, and appointed Tim Palmer, formerly SVP Global Recruitment of Endeavor, as managing partner. He will lead the new practice which will operate alongside Grace Blue’s existing practices for consumer brands and agencies and follows a sustained increase in briefs for sports, media and entertainment clients including the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club, Scottish Rugby Union, Lego, Amazon, and Spotify.

As lead, Palmer’s remit will be to build on this emerging area and help meet the growing demand from sports, media and entertainment companies wishing to attract talent from beyond their own competitive sets to accelerate business transformation. Palmer has two decades of experience in the global sports, media & entertainment space, working for executive search firms as well as leading in-house functions within broadcast (Sky), publishing (HarperCollins), music (Universal Music). Most recently, he oversaw recruitment for global entertainment, sports & content company, Endeavor (WME, IMG, 160over90, UFC, Endeavor Streaming & On Location).  

Juliet Timms, founder and global CEO, Grace Blue, said: “The UK is set to become the largest European market in Media & Entertainment with strong growth forecast across the category worldwide. This is the perfect moment to launch our new dedicated Sports, Media & Entertainment practice and I’m excited that Tim is joining our business to help us make the very best of the opportunity.”

Tim Palmer, managing partner, Grace Blue, said: “I’ve known Juliet, Jay, and Sarah for a number of years and, as a former Grace Blue client, I’m thrilled to now join the business and lead the Sports, Media & Entertainment Practice. The massive changes seen in this sector have opened the talent market significantly, creating opportunities for innovative individuals from Agency, Brand and Consumer worlds to join and drive transformation. Grace Blue is uniquely positioned to help existing and new clients find the right talent and I’m excited to be a part of this.”

Sarah Skinner, CEO, EMEA, Grace Blue, added: “Business models in the Sports, Media & Entertainment category are having to radically adapt in response to huge changes in consumer behaviour brought about by new technologies and by the pandemic. This requires new skills and fresh perspectives from leadership teams, especially around areas of data and insights, creativity, technology, commercialisation, and audience engagement. Our new practice will help companies find the transformational leadership talent they need to succeed and thrive.”

Shona Bell, chief people and engagement officer, Scottish Rugby, added: “Grace Blue look beyond the obvious, bringing a valuable and fresh perspective to sourcing great talent.”

About The Sports, Media & Entertainment Sector

• The UK is set to overtake Germany in becoming Europe’s biggest E&M market in the coming years. PWC values the UK E&M market at £83bn in 2022, with further growth of 4% per annum through to 2026 with a value of £97bn – the second-fastest rate of growth of any western European market. (Source: PwC Outlook)

• In media, entertainment and sports, business models must be rapidly adapted in response to new needs and lifestyles. Leaders who seek diverse ideas will be in position to foresee radically different audiences and prepared to accommodate them.  Today’s M&E companies must reimagine their business models to keep pace with changing consumption behaviours and non-traditional competitor. (Source: Grant Thornton)

• In the coming year, media & entertainment will continue to evolve quickly, not only reckoning with ongoing trends and disruptions within the industry, but also in its continued response to pandemic-led behavioural changes. The media and entertainment industry, embedded in the business of imagination, is riding a wave of tremendous opportunity amid the turbulence that attends times of significant change (Source: Deloitte)

• The global sports market is expected to grow from $354.96 billion in 2021 to $501.43 billion in 2022 (Sports Global Market Report 2022) The sports market is expected to reach $599.9 billion by 2025, and $826.0 billion by 2030. (Source: The Business Research Company)

• The health & wellness trend combined with consumers transferring spend to leisure activities will ensure the market outperforms non-food retail - up 17.8% over the next five years versus 11.2% for non-food (Source: The UK Sports Market 2017 - 2022)

• The overall growth path is both clear and strong and the increasing availability of compelling E&M content, services and experiences will attract a greater share of consumers’ attention. For businesses, however, intense competition and continual disruption remain the order of the day. That means strategy can’t remain static. (Source: PWC Outlook 2022-2026)

Grace Blue & Diversity

• At Grace Blue, we hold ourselves accountable for identifying, representing, and advocating for talent who will bring unique and diverse perspectives to an organisation. 

• Diversity can be defined as any group that is underrepresented in your business, for many of our clients, the priority is gender and ethnicity. 

• Over the last 12 months 100% of shortlists delivered at Grace Blue EMEA were diverse and over 50% of appointments in 2021/22 were diverse.  

Grace Blue & Sustainability

• Grace Blue is proud to be the first executive search firm to announce their commitment to Ad Net Zero, an industry wide drive by the Advertising Association, ISBA and the IPA to reduce the carbon impact of ad operations by end 2030.

• The team will be encouraging best practice in sustainable ad operations, promoting sustainable behaviour change as a core skills requirement of leadership talent and facilitating knowledge-share across its leadership network of clients and candidates.