USA Cricket is pleased to announce another significant milestone with the hiring of Iain Higgins as the organization’s first Chief Executive Officer. Higgins comes to USA Cricket after more than 10 years of leadership roles with the International Cricket Council (ICC), serving as the Chief Operating Officer of the sport’s governing body since 2015.
“In our quest to grow the sport of cricket in the United States and enhance the profile of USA Cricket within the sport’s global community, Iain rose to the top as the best candidate among a highly talented international field,” said Paraag Marathe, USA Cricket Board Chair. “The experience and connections Iain has developed over the last decade at the ICC made him uniquely qualified for this position and we look forward to adding his tremendous leadership skills to our effort.”
USA Cricket partnered with global leader Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to drive the search process that garnered interest from leaders around the world both from within and outside of cricket. During that search, hundreds of candidates were initially screened and nearly 50 of those were engaged in conversations, with Higgins being the clear front runner and ultimately approved unanimously by USA Cricket’s Board of Directors.
“We received tremendous interest from top executives around the globe to have the opportunity to grow cricket, one of the world’s most popular sports, into what is arguably its largest growth market,” said Asher Simons of CAA Executive Search. “Iain’s vision for the sport, and his ability to execute on that vision, made him an ideal candidate for this position, and we are excited to see him steer the sport of cricket to its full potential in the U.S.
Higgins, a former sports lawyer, who will be stepping down from the International Cricket Council in August, 2019 to assume the post starting in early September, was a key member of the ICC’s leadership team over many years, initially as General Counsel and subsequently as Chief Operating Officer as well as General Counsel.
Higgins has been instrumental in the ICC’s efforts over the past few years to build a unified and sustainable foundation which will enable the growth of the sport in the USA, as well as leading the sport on a variety of governance and strategic initiatives within the ICC and its membership.
“I am thrilled and privileged to be given this incredible opportunity at such an exciting and pivotal moment in the future of cricket in the U.S. I look forward to working in partnership with all of the many stakeholder groups and individuals across the country to collectively drive greater levels of engagement with the sport at all levels and across all communities.
The future for the sport in the U.S. is exceptionally bright, the scale of ambition is huge and the plans that USA Cricket has recently laid out have enormous scope and potential. I look forward to playing my part in developing and implementing those plans together with the rest of the cricket community so as to help the sport to achieve significant growth in popularity within the U.S. and so that USA Cricket’s role and status within the broader global cricketing landscape is enhanced.”
Higgins joins USA Cricket at a time of unprecedented success for cricket in the United States. On the field, the Men’s National Team recently won One Day International (ODI) status for the first time in history and is now ranked top 20 in the world, the Women’s National Team recently finished 7-0 including a 3-0 sweep of Canada to win the ICC Americas’ Qualifier which qualifies them for a T20 Global Qualifier starting in late August, 2019 as well as a 50 Over Global Qualifier in 2020 and the U19 National Team is focused on its final ICC Americas’ Qualifier game tomorrow against Canada where both teams enter undefeated and the winner will advance directly to the 2020 U19 World Cup.
The announcement follows hot on the heels of USA Cricket’s recent announcement of a new coaching structure put in place to assist the Men’s National Team in its quest to qualify later this year for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in 2020. Details of that new and enhanced coaching structure can be found here.