CUBO Group Lead Spotlight: Phil Steele

At CUBO, we’re proud to have a range of groups that bring our members together to share knowledge, challenges and best practice. Our Special Interest Groups connect colleagues working in the same service areas, while our Regional Groups link members from nearby institutions. Both provide invaluable opportunities for support, information sharing and professional development.

To celebrate the people who lead these groups and help drive important conversations that matter to our sector, we’re introducing the chairs who are at the helm.

This week, meet Phil Steele, Chair of the CUBO Sport Business Group.

1. Can you tell us a bit about your career journey and how you came to your current role?
   
   I guess I’m an operator by trade – working within leisure for a long time, but having the benefit of taking two lead roles early in my career where I headed up the sales and marketing team for a company and then working within, and eventually leading the business development team for the then largest contractor in the leisure contract management sector. I joined UEA in 2012 as Director of Sport and was fortunate to be invited to lead a new university commercial team in 2018 which now covers my original role in sport but also catering, accommodation (student and guest) retail, nursery, dental practice and a project focusing on income generation initiatives across our campus.

2. What’s the focus of your special interest group, and why is it important in the current HE landscape?
   
   Sport and physical activity have forever been regarded as a key part of positive life experience for people – the benefits range from physiological and mental health impact from the activities themselves, but then the wider connectivity and sense of belonging impacts are now becoming evidenced across HE. The financial pressures that we're all facing in HE means that some of our programmes are potentially targets for savings, but the danger is that the wider impacts and benefits an HEI can establish from these programmes could be lost.
   
   The evidencing and highlighting of these is something I’ve been keen to showcase – initially from the work we've done at UEA, but for a sector that is the most collaborative environment I've ever worked in, I wanted to support the fact we can raise awareness about these distinct impacts. People in sport and physical activity ‘get it’ - these are mostly represented from the British University and Colleges Sport (BUCS) membership, but the CUBO connection enables us to help raise awareness and better inform the next level of HE management, many of whom may not have sport and physical activity specialisms, but would benefit from this insight when facing challenging decisions relating to their campus service programmes.

3. What are some of the common challenges or hot topics your group has been discussing lately?
   
   Most recently the key challenges for our working groups, that we know are replicated across many institutions, include and interconnect between financial prudence, high service standards and quality, and providing a wide-ranging activity / service programme.
   
   At UEA, for both our campus and local communities, value for money is paramount so providing an affordable service that is also sustainable to the institution underlines all we are doing. This requires us to be sharp on price points, service and quality levels. We aim to recruit committed, service-oriented team members who can best deliver our innovative programmes which also offer variety. Overall, this is a difficult set of criteria to balance. The working groups are looking to be able to showcase great practice that can identify opportunities for others to utilise and we can further enhance our value in the minds of our senior managers.

4. Why would you encourage colleagues to get involved in a CUBO special interest group?
   
   The support requirement is driven by members so it should be pertinent to the ongoing issues we are facing in our operations. For the work we're undertaking in sport and physical activity, all the emphasis is on improving viability / service standards / appropriate choice & options to engage with students, staff and our community users.
   
   So, our key focus is to add value to our current services, safeguarding them in the eyes of our current and prospective students, but to also explore potential opportunities we could offer to further improve what we have available to our ‘customers’.

5. What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone new in your area of expertise?
   
   Connect up – the network is truly collaborative, and many people have been in the same place and we're all very able and willing to share experiences and sector knowledge. The value proposition will be different for each university, so matching the needs of your campus and student cohort to your delivery plans needs constant focus. The network is a great way of looking at alternative solutions to problems you may be facing.

6. And finally – what do you do to recharge outside of work?
   
   Recharging comes mostly with the help of family and friends and very likely has music going on in the background. I love to travel and particularly enjoy the outdoors.  Coming from sport, it’s no surprise I’m a sports nut and spend way too much watching all the different sports coverage; but when I’m not watching sport, I keep active through cycling and walking and have occasionally taken on some challenges in these activities – most recently I managed to claw my way up the Stelvio Pass in the Italian Alps and I’m soon taking on an off-road route up through Snowdonia.