Parkrun’s founder has resigned from the charity’s trustee board and joined the senior management team, as the organisation overhauls its governance.
Paul Sinton-Hewitt, who organised the first Parkrun event in 2004, was a founding trustee of Parkrun Global when it became a charity in 2017.
Parkrun Global confirmed that he would now sit on the leadership team as founder and executive director.
The move is part of a series of governance changes introduced by Russ Jefferys, who replaced Nick Pearson as Parkrun Global’s chief executive in February. Jefferys was previously the charity’s head of global communications.
An internal report into the culture at Parkrun Global, produced just after Pearson left the charity and seen by Third Sector, warned that staff saw the leadership team as “a boys’ club”, with trust in senior staff “beginning to be eroded”.
In June it emerged that Pearson had received secret commission payments from one of the charity’s suppliers throughout his time as chief executive.
Jefferys told Third Sector the charity’s administration processes have “not always been able to keep pace” with its expansion.
Parkrun Global said Sinton-Hewitt’s move had been planned before revelations about payments to Pearson.
The charity also said it planned to amend its articles of association, to change the clause that guaranteed Sinton-Hewitt a place on the board for life.
The charity’s accounts since 2017 show that, while a trustee, Sinton-Hewitt was paid more than £70,000 each year “for his daily work in promoting Parkrun within the UK and globally, and performing ad hoc services to sponsors, grant providers and the wider community as and when required”.
Sinton-Hewitt was the only trustee eligible for such payments, as a result of a clause in the charity’s founding document.
He will receive the same annual salary in his new role, the charity confirmed, and would focus on ensuring “the core key values of Parkrun are maintained in all decision-making”.
In 2018, Sinton-Hewitt told The Guardian newspaper he “wanted to take on all the people making so much money out of running”.
As part of the restructure, Parkrun Global is expanding its senior leadership team from five roles to nine, recruiting for a head of people and head of commercial and fundraising.
The charity is also looking to recruit three trustees with particular expertise in areas including volunteering, health and participation.
About 160,000 people participated in or volunteered at a Parkrun event in the UK last weekend, according to the charity’s latest data.
Jefferys said: “Over the past 18 years Parkrun has grown from a single event, started by Paul Sinton-Hewitt in south-west London, to a global community of over 7.5m people registered to one of over 2,200 events in 23 countries around the world.
“Looking back over the years I think it’s fair to say the central administration hasn’t always been able to keep pace with this rapid growth.
“Very early on we made a commitment to protect and never change the simple event-day experience that we started with in 2004. But behind the scenes, our structure, management and governance has needed – and will continue – to evolve.
“As an organisation we have achieved a lot, and there’s a huge amount to be proud of, but we haven’t always got everything right.
“Since I took over as chief executive in February, I have been working closely with the trustees to identify the areas in which we need to improve.”
Jefferys said that his first six months had involved “a huge programme of change”, with Sinton-Hewitt’s move “one of a number of changes that have long been part of our strategic plan”.
He said: “We’re looking forward, learning from the past and challenging ourselves to do more and better.”