Coaches Advisory Group

Dr Shahed Ahmad is an NHS England Medical Director in the South East Region where he is the Responsible Officer for over 3000 GPs. Shahed was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and University College and Middlesex School of Medicine. Shahed did his MSc in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and his leadership training at the London Business School. Before working for NHS England and NHS Improvement, Shahed was a Director of Public Health and led on cardiovascular risk reduction in a number of boroughs. Since joining NHS England and NHS Improvement, Shahed developed the NHS@2030 programme for GPs in South Central (a number of whom are now clinical directors of primary care networks) and developed the Hampshire Thames Valley Leadership Forum.

Justine grew up in New Zealand and now lives in Scotland where she is involved in club hockey, coach development, and coached the Scotland U18 girls’ national squad. Hockey has been a part of her life from the early days playing hockey in the local club’s boys’ team, to representing NZ, to playing and coaching in Canada. Wherever she has travelled to, hockey provided a sense of ‘family’ and amazing people to connect with. In her ‘day job’, Justine is a lecturer and researcher in coaching and coach development where she has worked with experienced coaches, from grassroots to international levels across the world, supporting their on-going development.

Jenny has been involved in hockey since falling in love with the game at the age of 10.  Having spent most of her playing career in the national league with Wimbledon, Jenny joined Henley HC where she enjoyed a variety of coaching and administrative roles.  Most recently as part of the newly formed Youth Development Committee.

Away from hockey Jenny has spent 21 years working at UK Coaching where she has enjoyed supporting a wide range of partners to develop the systems that are so critical to the development of the coaching workforce.  Having recently left the organisation she is enjoying some much-needed time with her two children.

Jimmy is Director of Hockey at Wimbledon HC and Talent Academy Wimbledon Boys Coach. Prior to this he worked as Head of Hockey at Surbiton High School for ten years and at Surbiton HC in a variety of roles including five years as assistant coach to the Men’s 1^st team. Having worked on every rung of the player pathway and single system ladders, he now coaches the England U16 Boys. Jimmy holds a Msc in Performance Coaching and a PGCert in Sports Management from the University of Stirling. He is a graduate of the GB Advanced Coach Program, the EuroHockey Top Coach Program and is an FIH High Performance coach (L5) Candidate.

Having played grass roots hockey at Greenock hockey club, I am now coach at Western Wildcats where the ladies’ 1st team has gained success in the Scottish Premiership whilst further developing a thriving ladies’ section. With over a decade of experience in the Scottish International women’s team I was captain for the last 5 of my playing years. Since retiring from the international scene, I took on the ambassadorial role of vice president at Scottish Hockey, and have since recently been invited onto the Scottish Hockey and Great Britain Hockey Boards as a Non-Executive Director. Outwith hockey have 14 years’ experience as a health care professional, sit on the athlete advisory panel for Team Scotland and mentored on their Achieve Programme for Birmingham 2022. 

Christine started playing hockey at Primary School, played at University and now plays for Harborne Hockey Club in Birmingham. Christine coaches the Flyerz (disability) section at Harborne and also does outreach work in the community getting disadvantaged groups playing hockey. Christine is an active Level 1 Umpire and undertakes a committee role at her club too.  She is passionate about getting people playing hockey whether as a beginner or a returner to the sport and whether they want to aim for a GB spot in the future, or just a run around on the occasional Saturday with their mates. 

With 30 years in the engineering, consultancy and venture capital industries, Darren has experience of strategic analysis and working in large teams to get things done. Darren has experience of coaching in the player pathway and club environment for both junior and senior teams. His coaching style embraces team building, plenty of data and a high level of involvement. Darren believes that there are pockets of exceptional coaching existing within our community. If we could develop a deeper understanding of who coaches hockey, we could provide an opportunity for curious coaches to learn from this expertise.

Oli is a hockey volunteer, who has spent 20 years coaching children and participation as well as talent and performance players. He brings with him a wealth of experience from large national league teams, to smaller community clubs. He was nominated for an England Hockey innovation award for his successful Pre-school Hockey program ‘Little sticks’.In his day job Oli is a creative entrepreneur and campaigner. In 2008 he was awarded an MBE for successfully lobbying the government to introduce the creative industries tax credits. 

His animation company Blue-Zoo was the first in the world to be awarded B-Corp status and he hopes to bring his experience of creating good creative environments for all people to work and volunteer in, to this group.

Barnaby works day-to-day in sport, both in research and practice. He is a PhD researcher at Leeds Beckett University where his project contributes towards ICOACHKIDS, a coach learning global movement. Barnaby’s research explores the creation of effective holistic talent development environments, from a European and multi-sport perspective. On the ground in hockey, he currently coaches in club, county and talent academy programmes and he is Head of Boys Hockey at Leeds Hockey Club, leading the club programme for players aged 6-18 in the city. He has previous experience coaching in the South-West and Midlands, at school and university level, and he is a qualified PE teacher. 

Simon is currently the Head of Hockey and Assistant Director of Sport Performance at Cheltenham Ladies College and coaches U14’s at Cheltenham Junior Hockey Club. Previously he has worked in various performance coaching roles and has been a senior lecturer in sports coaching helping coaches to reflect upon their methods and philosophies. He has been the vice-chair of the international physical literacy association with a passion for developing strategies and environments that build individuals confidence within sports performance and participation contexts.

Amanda has been operating in the world of Performance and Talent Development for over 25 years and is a L4 high performance coach. As a former International Coach, she worked through two Commonwealth Games cycles, in Delhi 2010 and Glasgow 2014 with Wales Senior Women. Alongside coaching, Amanda has held senior management and performance roles within England Hockey, England Squash and Hockey Wales. She is currently a Senior Lecturer in Sport at University Academy 92 (UA92). Amanda was awarded with her Doctorate in Elite Performance 'Designing and Delivering Talent Development Frameworks: A Practitioner’s Perspective’ in 2022. Her current research interests are designing and delivering Talent Development Frameworks across various environments, alongside managing change across a multi-stakeholder network, to provide the best environments to develop best outcomes. Her current consultancy and scholarly activity include, Performance Director for Bowdon Hockey Club and Development Coach for the Youth Sports Trust, working with the Greater Manchester FA Girls programme. She also sits on the NW Hockey Talent Forum and is a member of Amanda is a member of CRiC (Cluster for Research into Coaching).

Helen’s coaching journey started when she was just 13 years old at her local hockey club. Since, she has coached in a variety of environments including children, participation and talent allowing her to meet loads of fantastic people! She was named the Rising Star Award Winner at the 2019 England Hockey Awards. Additionally, she won European Young Leader 2019 at the European Hockey Federation Youth Festival. She has been a member of the European Hockey Youth Panel since 2018. Coaching has become a massive passion and part of her life which she hopes she will continue for many years to come.