ARSENAL have been on a rollercoaster ride for some years now – having ended the tripartite management model it experimented with for two years – but off the pitch it has been a steady rise for Vinai Venkatesham who became the club’s chief executive in August 2020.
The model had Venkatesham in a key role –in the newly created position of a managing director – along with Raul Sanllehi, who joined in February 2018 from FC Barcelona as director of football relations, and head coach Unai Emery, specifically responsible for the performance of the first team. The structure was an effort to manage the transition following the departure of two giants from the club in 2018 – manager of 22 years, Arsène Wenger, and chief executive Ivan Gazidis.
With the club finding a new lease of life under its current manager Mikel Arteta – who took charge in December 2019 – and winning the FA Cup and Community Shield in 2020, the Gunners reverted to the operational model of the Wenger-era after Sanllehi decided to leave.
“We have no doubt that Vinai is the right person to take the club forward,” said Stan and Josh Kroenke, owners of the club.
“He has shown outstanding leadership during the current crisis and is held in high regard internally and externally.
We know everyone will rally round him so we can move forward successfully.”
Venkatesham now has the executive responsibility for matters on and off the pitch, and oversees a three-man team responsible for all football affairs while Arteta works closely with technical director Edu Gasper – both former captains – and academy manager Per Mertesacker.
As the club endures what its life president Ken Friar – who has been at Arsenal for 70 years – terms the toughest period they have ever had in their 134-year history, Venkatesham has the onerous task of returning the club to the pinnacle of the game.
While he knows this will not happen overnight, he is confident that they have “many of the critical ingredients” to do so and “many positives to build on”.
“Like many people that work at this football club, I spend pretty much every waking minute thinking about how we can improve and how we can achieve our goals and objectives going forward,” he told the club after taking up the new position.
Being an internal hire, Venkatesham has been at Arsenal since 2010, he has had an inside view of what troubles the club, and knows exactly what is expected of him.
And, he has a proven record for out-of-thebox thinking that the club clearly needs.
He began his career at accounting giant Arthur Andersen, but the collapse of the firm in 2002 following the Enron scandal would cost him the job.
After a brief stint as an oil trader, he would be again on familiar terrain at Deloitte. Spotting an opening for a commercial manager for the upcoming 2012 London Olympics would, however, become a turning point.
“I wasn’t necessarily looking to leave Deloitte,” Venkatesham told the GG2 Power List earlier, “but I thought, this is the world’s biggest sporting event, happening in my home city: the definition of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
The task ahead was risky, with a target of £2 billion to raise from sponsors, but he decided to take up the gauntlet: “I was young enough – I didn’t have kids, didn’t have a mortgage – I was able to be drawn into this exciting challenge.”
By 2010, when his office was closed after securing the target, he had already found a niche for himself. He says, “I went from having no experience of working in sport to having done some of the world’s biggest sponsorship, hospitality, ticketing and licensing deals.”
Since joining Arsenal, Venkatesham has worked his way up the career ladder, from head of global partnership to the role of chief commercial officer, which he began in August 2014. He has played a significant role in expanding Arsenal’s range of sponsors and is credited with playing a leading role in negotiations for the club’s new kit deal, which has seen them switching from Puma to Adidas.
A private person, he knows that aspect of his character might not be compatible with the profile of his new role. But, on the other side, he acknowledges he would be a role model for many because of his ethnicity – son of a doctor who came to England on his own from Hyderabad in south India in the early 1970s.
Settled in Twickenham, the family ran a medical practice in nearby Chiswick, which is now manned by his elder sister, who is also a doctor. Venkatesham read economics and management at Oxford.
He is fully aware of the “weight of responsibility” that comes with the role, and with the club falling short of expectations at the moment, he is all set for the “huge amount of work ahead to get this football club back to where it needs to be.”
“Our fans expect and our fans demand that this football club wins trophies and is at the top of the game both here in England, as well as Europe. So what fuels me is delivering on the expectations and delivering in regard to what our fans demand of us,” he says.
