We are passionate
about sport

We are passionate
about sport

We are passionate
about sport

We believe in the power of all sport to develop and change lives for the better.
We work across all stages of the game, from grassroots to high performance, and from amateur to elite and professional sports.

About us

Leading Sport is a Sports Strategy, Sponsorship and Events consultancy. We accelerate performance for leading names in sports and events. We work in long term partnership with our clients and we help them grow.

Talk to us about how we can help you deliver sporting and event excellence.

Contact us

What we do

Strategic Consulting

Strategic Consulting is at the core of our practice. We help leaders, rights holders, federations and governing bodies, local authorities and government address their most urgent and complex issues. We help clients identify and develop their vision, mission and long-term objectives and understand their industry landscape and their strategic positioning. Once goals are set, we help our clients to develop a robust, fact-based strategy to ensure their goals are achieved and aspirations are met.

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We help clients to turn their strategies and plans into concrete outcomes through robust implementation plans. Incorporating powerful methodologies and trusted systems, we help clients design and execute a delivery mechanism that focuses on results, through systematic tracking, monitoring and problem-solving. We project manage delivery and implementation, and train and support internal teams to ensure that delivery.

We are experts in women’s sport, and we are working for a world where diversity is the norm, and there is just ‘sport’, regardless of gender or ability.

Communications are an integral part of delivering strategies, policies and outcomes. We help our clients develop and execute their strategic communications – from identification of audiences, developing narratives, and defining messages and channels.

Events

We are proud to work on the most exciting events and with forward-thinking rights holders. We help them become more commercially successful, maximising the value of their rights, creating new assets and revenue streams and finding efficiencies in their operations.

Sponsorship

Through our sponsorship work we connect the right people to the right opportunities. Through our extensive network across all parts of the industry - from rights owners to sponsors, governing bodies, major event organisers, teams and consortia - we are able to help connect capital to opportunity. We help clients develop new business and commercial partnerships.

Clients

We have worked with some of the top sport companies and organisations globally and domestically including:

Our Team & Associates

Our Team

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Maeve Buckley

Founder and Managing Director

Maeve has a deep understanding of the European sport industry and the most successful initiatives happening across that landscape, and has worked with iconic teams, organisations and major events such as Ryder Cup, FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Liverpool FC, Man City, Arsenal and UEFA. Maeve specialises in advisory services and project management to governing bodies and federations, city and national authorities, as well as the development and commercialisation of international sports events. Maeve specialises in women’s sport and performance sport and has worked with FIFA, Sport Ireland and the IRFU amongst others. Maeve is a Board Member of the Federation of Irish Sport and was voted one of the Most Influential Women in Sport in 2014-2019 (sportforbusiness.com). She previously worked in international marketing roles with Orange, Salvatore Ferragamo and Bord Bia, based in Amsterdam, Milan and Madrid. She holds an MBA from the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid and has a BA (Hons) degree from University College Cork, and speaks French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Our Associates

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Aideen Ward

Associate

Aideen specialises in primary and secondary research as an evidence base used for strategy development.

Prior to her associate work, Aideen worked for Genesis Strategic Management Consultants where she worked on a broad range of business areas including business and sport.

Aideen holds a First Class Honours MBS in Business Practice from the Irish Management Insittute incorporating Strategy and Innovation and Strategic Marketing.

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Deirdre Motherway

Associate

Deirdre provides programme and project management skills to our clients, as well as to Leading Sport itself as it expands. Deirdre is ex Apple and Microsoft and is an expert in design led thinking, PMO, change management and transformation.

Our team of associates provide expertise from a variety of fields that enables us to tailor our services to our clients’ needs.

Contact us

Contact

3rd Floor,
City Quarter,
Lapps Quay,
Cork,
T12 Y3ET,
Ireland

Maeve Buckley

+353 (0) 86 1582725
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