IN BRIEF
British Cycling has appointed Professor Pete Bonfield as its chief executive. He takes up the role in mid-November, leaving the University of Westminster, where he has been vice-chancellor and president since 2018. A materials engineer by training and a sustainability specialist, he was also a racer: national youth criterium champion, selected for the Great Britain team at the junior world championships, then a member of the national road squad. He succeeds Jon Dutton, who left in July to take charge of the British Olympic Association after three turbulent years for the federation.
The British cycling federation had been looking for a boss since the start of the year. It has ended up finding one in a lecture theatre rather than a velodrome: Professor Pete Bonfield, a materials engineer, currently heads the University of Westminster. He takes over at British Cycling in mid-November.
Who is Pete Bonfield, British Cycling’s new boss
British Cycling has gone to a university to find its chief executive. Bonfield is “a professor of engineering and sustainable development at the University of Westminster, where he was appointed vice-chancellor in 2018”, road.cc reports.
Professionally, he has chaired the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, led five independent reviews for the British government and served as Senior Independent Director of ukactive, the trade body for the physical activity sector in the UK. Between 2006 and 2012, he worked part-time with the Olympic Delivery Authority, where he helped design and deliver the sustainability strategy for the London 2012 Games.
But there is a racer behind the academic. According to road.cc, Bonfield was national youth criterium champion and represented Great Britain at the junior world championships, before later joining the senior national road squad. Again according to road.cc, he has also coached at the highest level, overseeing Great Britain’s women’s triathlon squad at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
A handover after three turbulent years
Bonfield succeeds Jon Dutton, who left British Cycling in July to take the same role at the British Olympic Association. His three years at the head of the federation “have been marked by turbulence and have seen the governing body’s membership fall by over 20,000”, road.cc writes.
Lee Gibbons has been serving as interim chief executive since July, and will do so until Bonfield arrives in mid-November. British Cycling chair Chris Pilling thanked him in the announcement: “I would also like to place on record my sincere thanks to Lee Gibbons for his exceptional contribution as Interim Chief Executive.”
On the choice made, Pilling writes: “Following a rigorous recruitment process, we are delighted to appoint Pete as British Cycling’s next Chief Executive”, before describing him as “an accomplished and values-driven leader”.
Bonfield, for his part, responded in a statement released by the federation: “I am delighted to be joining British Cycling at such an exciting time for the sport. Cycling has been a constant throughout my life, whether through racing, commuting, coaching or simply enjoying the freedom that a bike provides.”
The new boss will also inherit a sizeable file: the double Grand Départ of the Tour de France, men’s and women’s, in the UK next summer — according to BikeRadar, the men’s race will start from Edinburgh, thirteen years after the last British Grand Départ, in Yorkshire in 2014.
It remains to be seen what a sustainability engineer will do with a federation that has lost more than 20,000 members between March 2023 and March 2025.
