Job role:

I provide executive leadership to Greater Manchester Moving, our movement for movement.

I am also CEO of Greater Manchester’s Active Partnership, which leads, supports, and connects the movement alongside thousands of organisations across the city-region. The movement shapes and powers the shared GM Moving in Action strategy.

My role is to:

  • Provide leadership to the GM Moving core team, maintaining our position as an organisation that is highly valued and essential to the Greater Manchester system and national partners.
  • Demonstrate and role model ways of leading which have strong alignment to our values of passion, integrity and purpose and maintain an exceptional organisational culture.
  • Translate vision and strategy into agreed business plans and objectives which ensure that we play an effective part in support of the GM Moving in Action strategy.
  • Develop strong, strategic relationships across the ecosystem locally and nationally.
  • Support and enable the board and team to implement the Changing Our Lives Together Strategy, in support of GM Moving in Action.
  • Lead the organisation in its role as facilitator, connector, enabler, explorer, innovator and deliverer across Greater Manchester.
  • Offer strategic leadership to, and development of, the organisation and team.
  • Be accountable for governance, finance and risk.
  • Provide the key connection for the GM Moving Board and trustees to system-wide governance including the GM Moving Exec Group and other key GM Boards such as the ICP and Reform Board.
  • Provide leadership, with a flair for movement building and a systems approach to the complex challenge of inactivity and inequalities.
  • Provide leadership to the GM Moving Executive Group with the Chair.
  • Connect GM Moving into wider GM Reform Journey, providing system leadership and translating the learning from this agenda to wider reform and transformation.
  • Provide strategic leadership for place-based approaches, aligned to the Greater Manchester Principles of Reform, and the GM Moving Principles and Pointers for Leadership Practice.
  • Develop a clear and compelling narrative for active lives and tackling inequalities, convening and galvanising the whole system behind this agenda.
  • Provide leadership that grows a movement across Greater Manchester - a whole system approach for culture change, system change, and behaviour change.
  • Ensure that GM Moving in Action acts as a catalyst for change and action across GM and nationally.
  • Support and enable all organisations in the ecosystem to play their part in a collective and distributed leadership model. 
  • Model excellence in system leadership and support others to development their system leadership capabilities.
  • Share the journey and learning within Greater Manchester, and nationally to help create the conditions for change here and elsewhere.

Date joined: April 2017

Professional background: I moved to Greater Manchester from my role as Director of Derbyshire Sport to lead Greater Manchester Moving in April 2017. My 25 year career in physical activity and sport development, policy and community development have given me wide experience. My community activist roles keep this all very real, and hopefully ensure that I don’t float off into the strategy and policy ether.

I am constantly reflecting on the journey and learning of GM Moving, my personal and professional journey within that. I try to share my latest learning and thinking in ways that keep us all growing and learning together through my blogs; please join in the conversation here. I am learning that when things feel difficult, I need to go there. It’s where the magic happens.

Fun Fact: I need to be outdoors. Wild swimming and daily adventures in the hills help to keep me balanced, happy and productive.

Further details please contact

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By GreaterSport | 25 July 2022

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By GreaterSport | 04 January 2022

As we approach the end of the year it’s a time often used to reflect on what’s happened and look ahead to what’s to come.

Reflections on the GM Moving Big Co-Production Conversation

By Hayley Lever | 07 December 2021

After attending sessions as part of the GM Moving Big Co-Production Conversation, GM Moving Exec Lead Hayley Lever has shared her personal reflections along with those of the team behind the series.