Keith Wyness

Keith Wyness (born 26 October 1958) is a Scottish businessman and football executive, who was chief executive officer of the Scottish Premier League club Aberdeen and later the Premier League club Everton during the 2000s. He is currently CEO of Aston Villa, having been appointed in Summer 2016.

Early years

Prior to entering the football industry, his employers included British Airways, Radisson and the Olympic Club. Wyness joined British Airways on its graduate scheme and worked in the press office/sales promotion/marketing/sales areas before he was appointed the youngest vice-president in the airline's history. He was responsible for marketing Concorde. He was also instrumental in the development of the "Executive Club", now the world's largest frequent flyer programme.

Wyness moved to Miami in 1984 and co-founded Radisson Diamond with Christian Aspegren and Offe Nyblin. He was heavily involved with marketing for the cruise lines and was later involved with the attempted and aborted takeover of Cunard. He sat on the Board of Landry & Kling, the largest corporate cruise ship charter company in the world. He was then the founder and later the managing director of The Olympic Club, a worldwide marketing programme set up to promote every Olympic sport, and aided the marketing of the sports involved in the 2000 Summer Olympic Games.

He appeared on the Nottingham University team for University Challenge.

Aberdeen

On 22 October 2000, Wyness moved back to his home town of Aberdeen when he was appointed chief executive of Aberdeen F.C.. He became famous for several quotes regarding the behaviour of the Old Firm of Rangers and Celtic, who were looking to move to another league. A quote which was listed as Scottish Sports quote of the year was:

Despite the Scottish Premier League's television rights deal with Sky Sports ending soon after he arrived, Wyness was able to reduce the losses sustained by the club and when he left the club was close to operational break even. He introduced radical new player contracts with lower basic wages but big bonuses for points, attendance and even for merchandise sales, attracting media attention throughout Europe. Wyness left Aberdeen in 2004 to take a similar position at Everton. This appointment caused some controversy as he had been linked to the vacant position at Everton before he left Aberdeen. Wyness was succeeded as CEO by CFO Duncan Fraser^[1]

Everton

Wyness' tenure at Everton was met with a mixed response from fans and opinion remains divided on his outsourcing preferences and pursuit of the stadium build in Kirkby. He was criticised by shareholders for pursuing Everton's relocation whilst an active director of Soccer Range Stadia – a stadium management company he set up. However, the company had absolutely nothing to do with stadium management and was in fact a leisure use for football and he had offered Everton a chance to participate in the revenue streams that would have come from this concept.

Wyness outsourced in-house operations to reduce the short-term cost. The club's catering arrangements were outsourced to Sodexo UK, and the club shops were outsourced to the sports retailer JJB Sports, who later filed for administration. The JJB deal turned the £1.5 million loss the club was making on merchandising alone into a profit of £800,000. He also was responsible for negotiating the new Kitbag deal which has taken club sales to £10 million. The savings were also significant in terms of staff time and it was soon recognised that the club was not equipped to handle a retail operation.

The club's land assets, such as the Eileen Craven site on Walton Lane in Liverpool, were sold and developed into housing areas to help the club keep trading without selling players.^[2] For one year, Everton was in the top 20 of the Deloitte's table of clubs, but moved out of that list the next year after the merchandise and catering operations were outsourced and could no longer be included in turnover.

The former training ground Bellefield was also earmarked to become a housing development by Wyness. However, plans were later rejected by the Planning Inspectorate. It was felt by the club that this was a highly political decision by the local council linked to the potential move to Kirkby.^[3] Wyness was the main power behind the development of Finch Farm; he sourced the finance and the design for Everton's new training facility, which opened in November 2007.^[4] He arranged for Everton to purchase the training facility and sell it on to a third-party company and lease it back. It is considered one of the top training facilities in the Premier League.

He was responsible for coordinating the acquisition of the David France artefacts which together with a donation from the club's collection formed The Everton Collection, regarded as "most important football memorabilia collection in the world" by the auctioneers Sotheby's.^[5] A charitable trust was established which attracted National Lottery funding, meaning that Everton did not have to pay for the maintenance of the memorabilia. The collection is held at the Liverpool Records Office.

The relocation of the club to Kirkby was a very contentious issue. Although the board all agreed, he was left to be the only director to face the fans and argue the case in public. It was recognised that staying in the city was the preferred option but no deliverable option could be found despite many attempts.

Wyness was also an advocate of Game 39.

In May 2009, he wrote to the Liverpool Daily Post lambasting Liverpool City Council's decision to spend £265,000 fighting the Kirkby Project.^[6]

2010–2016

He is CEO of Insite Consulting Ltd, an international consulting business. Insite was instrumental in getting the correct IFAB approvals for the very successful 9.15m vanishing spray which was used in the 2014 FIFA World Cup with great success and will continue with the companies development.

As senior non executive director at the SECC for 8 years he oversaw many aspects of the World leading "Hydro Arena" in Glasgow a state of the art 13,000 seat live venue. It was also the centrepiece of the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games. He is involved in several major property development sin the NW as part of the Northern Powerhouse project and also in the London area with a major mixed use development in Greenwich.

Aston Villa

Wyness was appointed as CEO by the new owner of Aston Villa Tony Xia in June 2016.

References

External links

• Everton FC profile
• "Wyness restores Aberdeen's identity", The Scotsman, 3 February 2003
• Wyness wants Aberdeen to share stadium with Rangers
• Live The Dream: Who we are