London City Lionesses · Strategic proposition
Building the club of tomorrow.
On the pitch, and behind it.
A proposition for the strategic direction, delivery capacity and long-term organisational development that London City's ambition will require.
Strategy.
Special projects.
Future capability.
Prepared by Luke Baker
Published by No Full Stop
The ambition
One of the world's leading clubs.Built from the inside out.
London City's ambition is not in question. The football operation is being built with serious intent.
Significant attention is rightly going to the football operation. The next opportunity sits behind it: the strategic direction, capability and capacity the organisation around the football will need to match that ambition.
On the pitch
The football operation comes first.
Performance, recruitment, the environment players work in and the infrastructure around them. This is where the club's ambition is most visible, and where attention is already concentrated.
Behind it
The organisation has to keep pace.
Commercial growth, operations, supporters, technology, partnerships and long-term financial resilience. These decide whether success on the pitch becomes something that lasts.
The question is not whether the club can compete. It is whether the organisation behind it is built to keep competing.
This is not an assessment of how the club is currently run. It is a view of the next stage of its development.
The organisational opportunity
The functions are well covered.The longest questions still need an owner.
London City's directors are responsible for their functions, including substantial day-to-day activity and major projects.
That is what a growing club requires: functional leaders who own their areas and deliver within them. The opportunity is the work that does not sit inside any single area, and the capacity to give it proper attention.
01
The whole picture
An overarching strategy that connects the club's ambition with its priorities, its investment decisions and its organisational development, and shows whether those things are working together.
02
The longest questions
Long-term organisational development that spans seasons and functions, and rarely fits inside a single financial year or a single department.
03
The projects no function owns
Significant cross-club questions that touch football, commercial, operations and partners at the same time.
It is the work that has no natural home, and the gap this proposition is about.
Directors are described here as they are understood by the author. Titles to be confirmed.
The moments
The questions that needsomewhere to go.
When it's messy
“Can someone properly get underneath this?”
Understanding complicated problems, bringing together the right people and finding a clear way forward.
When the future is unclear
“Where are we actually trying to get to?”
Developing a coherent long-term club strategy that connects ambition, priorities, investments and decisions.
When something needs building
“Can someone take this from an idea to something real?”
Leading major initiatives from concept through planning, stakeholder engagement, implementation and delivery.
When it crosses departments
“Who's joining all of this up?”
Connecting football, commercial and operations around strategic priorities that cut across individual functions.
When there's an opportunity
“Is this worth pursuing?”
Investigating new possibilities, assessing feasibility and bringing back evidence, options and recommendations.
When everyone is stretched
“Who can take this off my plate?”
Providing capacity to progress important strategic work without pulling Martin or the existing directors away from their core responsibilities.
Not another layer of management. Someone who can take the difficult, important things and move them forward.
The capability
Three things this rolewould be responsible for.
01
Strategy
Develop and maintain an overarching club strategy: connecting ambition with priorities, investment decisions, organisational development, ownership and measurable outcomes.
02
Special projects
Take complex, multi-stakeholder projects from an initial question through research, options development, business case, stakeholder engagement, delivery and handover.
03
Future capability
Assess emerging opportunities, explore technology and AI, develop practical solutions and help the organisation prepare for what comes next.
How it would work
Running the club and building itare different jobs.
Both matter, and they need different horizons. One is measured in matches and seasons. The other is measured in the organisation the club becomes. They call for different kinds of leadership, working together.
Ownership ambition
Michele Kang
Executive leadership
Martin Semmens
Gonzalo
Football
Jack
Commercial and Marketing
Natalie
Operations
Cross-cutting capability
Reporting line left open
Strategy & Transformation
A capability that works across every function on the questions that span them: overarching strategy, long-term organisational development and complex cross-functional projects. It holds no decision rights over the directors' areas and does not duplicate their work.
On the pitch
A coaching staff runs the team. Methodology builds it.
Two different jobs, deliberately separated. The club invests in both.
Off the pitch
The directors run the club. A longer horizon builds it.
This proposition is about the second of those two jobs.
Functional leaders stay accountable for their areas, their teams and their delivery. A cross-cutting strategic capability would work alongside them, not above them: no decision rights over their functions, no duplication of their work, and no additional approval layer.
The directors lead their functions.
The CEO leads the organisation.
A cross-cutting capability helps connect and build its future.
The reporting line is deliberately left open. Title, level and scope would be agreed with the club.
What it could deliver
An illustrative mandate.Five places it could start.
Examples of the kind of work, not approved projects. Priorities would be agreed with the CEO and the leadership team.
01
The club strategy
Developing the overarching club strategy and an effective delivery framework: priorities, ownership, milestones and a straightforward way of tracking progress.
02
The long-term home
Supporting long-term stadium strategy and planning, bringing the football, commercial, operational, supporter and investment dimensions together into a clear set of options.
03
A smarter club
Exploring digital systems, AI and operational efficiency, and turning the useful ideas into practical improvements with the people who own them.
04
The questions that cross everything
Leading significant cross-club questions and projects that do not sit naturally within a single function.
05
The training ground and what it means
Connecting the club's investment in training infrastructure to its wider long-term organisational ambitions, so that the facility and the organisation grow together.
None of these has been commissioned, approved or costed. They illustrate the shape of the work rather than a plan.
Potential year one
From ambitionto momentum.
An illustrative starting mandate, kept deliberately simple. It shows how the first year could take shape, not an agreed programme of work.
First 90 days
Listen, align, prioritise
Understand the leadership team's priorities and the work already underway. Develop an initial club-wide strategic framework and clarify the gaps, dependencies and candidate initiatives.
Months four to six
Formalise and mobilise
Develop the strategy with executive input, establish straightforward progress reporting and take responsibility for two or three agreed priority initiatives.
Months seven to twelve
Deliver and embed
Progress the major initiatives, show useful improvements, support significant strategic decisions and embed a practical system of ownership and oversight.
An illustration of how the work could begin. None of these activities has been agreed, commissioned or approved.
For the CEO
The questions worth asking.
Because long-term strategy, cross-functional coordination and complex delivery are different kinds of work from running a function. They deserve sustained attention rather than whatever capacity is left at the end of a busy week.
This role would take ownership of agreed cross-club projects from the first question through to handover, working with the directors, their teams and external partners. Accountability for the functions themselves stays exactly where it is.
Alongside, not above. A cross-cutting capability working with each director on the questions that span their areas, with clear objectives, agreed decision rights and no authority over their functions.
Developing and aligning the overarching club strategy with the leadership team, then agreeing a small portfolio of the most significant cross-club questions to take forward properly.
A strategy the leadership team recognises and uses. Cross-club questions reaching decisions faster. Major projects progressing between meetings.
That strategic work has an owner, and that the bigger decisions arrive with the thinking already done.
The person behind the proposition
Experience of shaping strategy.And of making it happen.
Luke Baker is Senior Special Projects Manager at The Football Association, working across strategy, transformation and strategic projects.
Lead credential
Writing the FA National Grassroots Strategy
Long-term direction for a complex national football system, developed through wide consultation and carried through into a strategy, a delivery framework and measurable outcomes.
- Currently
- Senior Special Projects Manager, The Football Association
- Focus
- Strategy, transformation and strategic project delivery
- Independent work
- Founder, No Full Stop
Complex national programmes
Contributing to and leading defined elements of major transformation programmes, taking ambiguous challenges towards something that can actually be delivered.
Multi-stakeholder strategy
Developing strategy with the Premier League, the EFL, Sport England and government stakeholders, where progress depends on alignment rather than authority.
Governance and planning
Working through governance, planning and decision structures so that decisions stay connected to the people and functions they affect.
Practical digital solutions
Luke also builds digital products and works hands-on with technology and AI, which means ideas tend to arrive as something usable rather than a document.
My work sits where strategy, alignment and delivery meet: working out what matters, bringing the right people together, finding a practical route and then making it happen.
A personal proposition. It is not endorsed by, and does not represent the views of, The Football Association.
This is a proposition for a senior permanent role at London City, not a consultancy service. Title, level and reporting line are deliberately left open.
The ambition is clear.The organisation can match it.
London City has the chance to build the strategic capability its next phase will need. This page is an invitation to consider how that could work.
Luke Baker
Strategy · Transformation · Special Projects
Related
This page is the companion to On Our Terms, the London City strategy. The strategy is the proposition for the club. This is the proposition for the capability required to deliver it. Both are independent concepts by the same author, not approved club documents.
Prepared by Luke Baker. Published by No Full Stop.