Zena Wooldridge OBE

Zena’s career in the sports sector has always combined her paid role in university sport with various non-exec national and international roles. 

Until 2021 she was Director of Sport at the University of Birmingham where she was the sport lead on the development and commercial operation of over £60m of new facilities completed in 2017-18. This included 4 competition and training venues for the 2022 Commonwealth Games. 

Zena has held various NED roles in multi-sport and in squash, both national and international.  She chaired England Squash 2006-12, was elected Vice-President of the European Squash Federation in 2011 and served as President 2013-19. During that same period Zena was also a member of the British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) Board and of Birmingham’s Commonwealth Games Bid Committee. 

In December 2020, Zena was elected President of the World Squash Federation (WSF), the first English President of WSF since its first President in 1967. WSF has reached the mid-point in its ambitious four-year strategy, one of its aims to ‘consider the feasibility of another Olympic bid’, a 30 year ambition realised in Mumbai last October when the IOC Session approved squash’s inclusion in the LA28 Olympic Games, regarded as the greatest moment in the sport’s 160 year history. 

Born and living in the Black Country, Zena is delighted and excited to be participating in her first Sport Accord in her home city and as a major legacy event from the 2022 Commonwealth Games.