Christian Purslow (born 14 December 1963) is a British businessman who is the chief executive officer of the
Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...
club
Aston Villa Football Club
Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa Park, ...
. He was the co-founder of
private equity firm
A private equity firm is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including leve ...
MidOcean Partners
MidOcean Partners is a New York-based alternative asset management firm that specializes in mid-sized private equity and alternative leveraged investments.
The firm, founded in February 2003, is based in Midtown Manhattan. MidOcean was original ...
and was the former managing director of
Liverpool Football Club
Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club joined the Football League the following year and has p ...
and the former managing director and head of global commercial activities at
Chelsea Football Club
Chelsea Football Club is an English professional football club based in Fulham, West London. Founded in 1905, they play their home games at Stamford Bridge. The club competes in the Premier League, the top division of English football. The ...
.
Early life
After attending
Aylesbury Grammar School
Aylesbury Grammar School is a grammar school in Aylesbury situated in the English county of Buckinghamshire, which educates approximately 1300 students.
Founded in 1598 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire by Sir Henry Lee, Champion of Queen Elizabeth ...
, he went on to graduate with a degree in modern and medieval languages at
Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge
Fitzwilliam College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.
The college traces its origins back to 1869 and the foundation of the Non-Collegiate Students Board, a venture intended to offer academically excellent students of all ...
. He later earned an MBA at
Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...
where he was a Baker Scholar, finishing in the top five percent of his class.
[
]
Career
Purslow trained as an analyst with L.E.K. Consulting, before joining the Burton Group as executive assistant to the CEO. After becoming head of new business development for Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was estab ...
, he joined Credit Suisse First Boston
Credit Suisse First Boston (also known as CSFB and CS First Boston) is the investment banking affiliate of Credit Suisse headquartered in New York.
The company was created by the merger of First Boston, First Boston Corporation and Credit Suisse, ...
as head of UK mergers and acquisitions. He then joined Schroders
Schroders plc is a British multinational asset management company, founded in 1804. The company employs over 5,000 people worldwide in 32 locations around Europe, America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Headquartered in the City of London, it ...
Salomon Smith Barney
Salomon Brothers, Inc., was an American multinational bulge bracket investment bank headquartered in New York. It was one of the five largest investment banking enterprises in the United States and the most profitable firm on Wall Street durin ...
as head of cable, media and entertainment investment, before becoming managing director of DB Capital Partners
MidOcean Partners is a New York-based alternative asset management firm that specializes in mid-sized private equity and alternative leveraged investments.
The firm, founded in February 2003, is based in Midtown Manhattan. MidOcean was original ...
. It was while in this position, that DB Capital Partners was spun-out, in which he became managing director of new private equity firm, MidOcean Partners
MidOcean Partners is a New York-based alternative asset management firm that specializes in mid-sized private equity and alternative leveraged investments.
The firm, founded in February 2003, is based in Midtown Manhattan. MidOcean was original ...
.
Liverpool F.C.
Purslow was appointed managing director of Liverpool Football Club in June 2009, with a priority to renegotiate the £350m loan the club had outstanding with RBS and to assume overall management of the club until a new permanent CEO could be appointed. Three months into his tenure, a team headed by Purslow negotiated an £80 million 4-year shirt sponsorship deal with Standard Chartered Bank
Standard Chartered plc is a multinational bank with operations in consumer, corporate and institutional banking, and treasury services. Despite being headquartered in the United Kingdom, it does not conduct retail banking in the UK, and around ...
.
On 6 October 2010, Purslow voted in favour of the sale of the club from the unpopular then-owners Tom Hicks
Thomas Ollis Hicks Sr. (born February 7, 1946), is an American private equity investor and sports team owner living in Dallas, Texas. ''Forbes'' magazine estimated Hicks' wealth at $1 billion in 2009, but it dropped to $700 million in 2010 ...
and George Gillett to the NESV group. In response to this, Hicks tried to block the sale by removing Purslow and Ian Ayre from the board and installing his son, Mack, and his business associate Lori McCutcheon to the board. On 13 October 2010, at a hearing in the High Court in London, Mr Justice Floyd held that Hicks’ actions were unlawful and in breach of the agreement he had signed with RBS. Floyd's judgment allowed the sale to proceed and, on 15 October 2010, NESV finally completed its £300m takeover of Liverpool in a deal which drastically reduced the club's debt to RBS.
Having completed his brief by finding a buyer, Purslow stepped down on 20 October 2010 after NESV assumed control of the club. He remained as a non-executive director and special adviser until February 2011.
Following the sale, Hicks and Gillett pursued legal action, however, a settlement was reached in January 2013 with Hicks and Gillett withdrawing all allegations made against Purslow and fellow directors Broughton and Ayre.
Chelsea F.C.
On 27 October 2014, it was announced that Purslow had joined Chelsea Football Club
Chelsea Football Club is an English professional football club based in Fulham, West London. Founded in 1905, they play their home games at Stamford Bridge. The club competes in the Premier League, the top division of English football. The ...
as "Head of Global Commercial Activities" with immediate effect. Purslow oversaw a number of deals (including Yokohama, Wipro and Carabao) and the club's £900m kit deal with Nike, a deal described by the BBC's Dan Roan as a "remarkable ... coup"
It was announced on 17 February 2017 that Purslow would be leaving Chelsea at the end of the 2017–18 season.
Aston Villa F.C.
On 31 August 2018, Purslow was appointed as the CEO of Aston Villa Football Club
Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa Park, ...
taking over the club in season 2018-19, the club's third consecutive season in the Championship
In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion.
Championship systems
Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship.
Title match system
In this system ...
. The club were promoted via the play offs under manager Dean Smith
Dean Edwards Smith (February 28, 1931 – February 7, 2015) was an American men's college basketball head coach. Called a "coaching legend" by the Basketball Hall of Fame, he coached for 36 years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hi ...
, who Purslow had appointed in October 2018.
Purslow appointed Steven Gerrard
Steven George Gerrard (born 30 May 1980) is an English professional football manager and former player, who most recently managed club Aston Villa. Described by pundits and fellow professionals as one of his generation's greatest players, Ge ...
as manager in November 2021, having previously worked with Gerrard at Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
.
In July 2022 Purslow was awarded an honorary doctorate by Aston University
Aston University (abbreviated as ''Aston''. for post-nominals) is a public research university situated in the city centre of Birmingham, England. Aston began as the Birmingham Municipal Technical School in 1895, evolving into the UK's first c ...
.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Purslow, Christian
1963 births
Living people
Alumni of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge
Harvard Business School alumni
British bankers
Private equity and venture capital investors
Liverpool F.C. chairmen and investors
British sports executives and administrators
Aston Villa F.C. directors and chairmen