“Only a very small proportion of the population gets to do what they love. I remind myself of that on the bad days,” says Nick Eastwood, The Rugby Football Union’s Finance Director and acting CEO. “Sport and rugby have been the most important aspects of my life, apart from family, since I was young man. I’m immensely privileged to be doing this."

 

Eastwood is one of three executive members of the main RFU board, played a significant role in turning around the RFU’s financial performance with a growth in revenues from £26m to £120m. It's a high profile role that involves negotiations with government ministers, TV and media appearances and significant visibility within the game.

 

His brief at the RFU is wide ranging. He was a member of the three man negotiating team threshing out the eight-year agreement with professional clubs, providing a longer term solution to long-running dispute between club v country.  He’s also chaired a game-wide task group resulting in widespread changes to the RFU constitutional, corporate governance and management structures and managed the financial aspects of England’s successful bid for Rugby World Cup 2015. 

 

Eastwood acknowledges his challenges are very different from most finance professionals in 2010, since the RFU is neither a plc nor limited company. “We don’t have the regulatory and compliance burdens of Sarbanes Oxley, for example, but most CFOs are balancing the whole shebang of compliance requirements while trying to add real value to the business.  That’s a big ask, especially when maintaining cash flow and raising working capital continue to be difficult.”

 

Of course, success can be measured in many ways – such as England winning the 2003 Rugby World Cup. “Success for me has always been about working as part of successful teams and organisations,” he says “Even if I didn’t actually have my boots on, it was fantastic to be there! That was such a high, a real life high. England winning the World Cup in Sydney must be a major career highlight in anyone’s book.”

 

The passion for Rugby goes back to his boyhood when he was School and then County Rugby captain and is certainly part of the reason why the playing field holds more appeal that the Square Mile. “It’s really important to stay true to own values and interesting City offers just didn’t interest me enough,” says Eastwood. “The RFU itself is relatively small and I have around 50 people reporting to me, including back-office and IT, but the organisation is more complex and much bigger than the balance sheet suggests.”

 

His finance career started in 1981 in an audit role at Arthur Andersen after reading French and History at Oxford then moved speedily into management. Prior to the RFU role, he was global head of corporate services at The Body Shop International where he led a major transformation programme. As a member of The Body Shop’s executive committee, he was responsible for the management of the worldwide business in 43 countries and with sales of £650m across 1,700 outlets.  

 

"Very young and, even worse, very English"

 

A pivotal period in shaping his career was a five-year tenure at the $100m ASB Meditest Corp, a Lifetime Corp subsidiary, first as Group Financial Controller and then as CFO where he was pivotal to the transformation of an also-ran into market leader during  “I was drafted in at the deep end as a 30-year old CFO of a very traditional company in midwest America. Normally you had to be about 60 to reach senior management. I was very young and, even worse, very English.”

 

This emphasised the importance of relationship building. “It was about building trust and credibility with hard-bitten American businessmen. We were merging two diametrically opposed cultures, which meant a lot of heartache and change; but there was huge career satisfaction in getting that operational experience and skin in the game while I was young.”

 

Eastwood says that kind of formative experience is fantastic. “It forces you to see things in a different way. Numbers are one thing but working closely with experienced mentors, which is what I did, is one of thee most important factors in shaping careers,” he says. “I’ve always learned most when working alongside strong mentors and it cuts both ways. We are only as good as the people we work with and that’s why we should always hire the best people.”

 

Eastwood's proudest career moment  (to date – he's only 51, so more to come) - was the  completion of the South Stand as one of the most advanced stadium complexes in the world: “That was a five-year, £150m multi-use construction project. It was highly complex and we did it without any support from the government and taxpayers. We haven’t spent a penny of taxpayers’ money,” he explains. “We’ve now started using the hotels and multiple leisure facilities and there’s an enormous personal and professional satisfaction in seeing it through from start to finish.”

 

The financial structuring and other financial aspects of the stadium redevelopment project - including a £70m unsecured debt package from Barclays and the restructured debt debenture programme - saw the RFU accrue a £15m cash benefit. “In the end we financed it partly through cash reserves and the £70m debt facility. That peaked at £56m, is now down £39m and we expect to pay it off during December 2012. Barclays have been excellent partners and I could hardly criticise them at all. They made a lot of money from the deal but really delivered on their part of the bargain.”

 

Government spending on sport is an issue close to his heart. Eastwood led the RFU team responsible for negotiating a new government funding package for sport, resulting in £31m over four years. Only around 5% of the total cost base comes from government coffers but his concern is that cuts to sport funding will have a negative impact on sport at the most basic level. 

 

“There will be savage cuts to sports funding although there may be some compensation from The Lottery,” he suggests. “With its return to the four pillars principle there will be a higher percentage of Lottery funding going into sport but there’s real uncertainty about grass roots and school funding where programmes and funding have been built in already.”

 

 

His career advice to aspiring CFOs is straightforward.  “First, hire the best people you can afford. Two, get operational experience as early as possible. Three, try to work for great and inspiring people,” he says.  “And when you are moving jobs, the two questions to ask are Who am I working for? Do I respect and trust that person? People, generally, don’t work just for money and if we don’t get the people mix right, longterm commercial success will be much harder to sustain.”

 

With so much of his life influenced by his passion for the sport, it's tempting to wonder if there is life outside rugby for Eastwood, a question that gets a speedy affirmation. “I love the US from my time there and really get American culture. I’m a big fan of Desperate Housewives and Seinfeld,” he says. “I love cooking, French and Italian food especially. I’ll spend many hours in the kitchen at weekends. The challenge in cooking is to get the best ingredients. As we get older we learn not to mess around with them. 

 

“Oh yes, we have a TV in the kitchen so I usually while away the cooking time watching sport, maybe some Test Match cricket…”

 

Or some rugby perhaps? There’s a theme here...