Speaker details

Biography

Hannah McLean is Senior Legal Counsel at the International Tennis Federation, and was until early 2023 the Executive Director, Legal Services before emigrating to Australia. She joined the ITF in 2017 as their first in-house counsel, and over six years created and entrenched a wide-ranging legal service offering to the business. As Executive Director, she led a growing team of in-house lawyers that advised the ITF on commercial, regulatory, governance and data protection matters, across the range of ITF functions (including international team competitions such as the Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup, tournaments that form the player pathway to professional tennis, and development programmes). She has a particular interest in sports regulation and governance, with a background in anti-doping and anti-corruption at UK Anti-Doping and the British Horseracing Authority. In 2018, she led the implementation of the ITF’s Code of Ethics, that sets ethical standards for those involved in the governance of the ITF, which applied to the 2019 Presidential and Board of Directors elections for the first time. She has most recently advised on matters relating to the war in Ukraine and its implications within the ITF and its competitions, and led a Governance Review seeking to further improve the ITF’s governance (which is already highly-rated by the regular ASOIF governance assessment). She was heavily involved in developing and advising on the ITF’s long-term Davis Cup licensing agreement with Kosmos Tennis, and most recently the structuring of new external investment into the Billie Jean King Cup, in particular how to manage the tension between independence of governance and regulatory matters on the one hand, and desire for commercial control and freedom on the other.