Board Profile – Paul Hurst
Current board term AGM 2023 – AGM 2025
Candidate statement AGM 2023:
As a founder member of the club I’ve seen us progress from those carefree North West Counties days, grow up into ‘homeowners’, the fallout in the years following, before having to navigate a pandemic. I am standing for election to the Board because I want to do my bit to help the club to face the next set of challenges that we will undoubtedly face.
I have been interested and involved in ‘supporter politics’, for want of a better term, for as long as I have regularly attended football matches, and I served on the committee of IMUSA prior to the Glazer takeover.
I have volunteered in a variety of roles at the club over the years, and I currently serve as the vice-chair of the Co-Ownership Committee. I’m proud of the work the committee has done over the last 18 months, most notably the successful introduction of online voting this year, which has seen a significant increase in the number of co-owners engaging in the democratic process at the club.
In my day job, I work as a project manager for a design and engineering company, with experience of working on major projects in the North West and further afield. My role involves dealing with management information around cost, schedule and risk, and reporting and communicating this to a variety of different stakeholders. I would hope that these skills will be useful in providing the strategic oversight of the club that I believe the job of the Board to be.
As the middle of now three generations of my family who are members and season ticket holders here, I’m conscious of the work we need to do to ensure we continue to appeal to a younger generation of Mancunian football supporters.
I passionately believe in supporter ownership as the best model for how our football clubs should be run. We have always been seen as a trailblazer, both at home and abroad, as shown by our participation in the FENIX Trophy. That’s something we should rightly be incredibly proud of.
It certainly hasn’t been easy. As a club, we have made great strides in addressing the serious challenges that we’ve faced since the pandemic, but there will always be more to do. If elected by the membership, I would be incredibly proud to play my part in shaping our future.
If you would like to contact Paul, please email paul.hurst@fc-utd.uk