Independent Governance for Safer Sport Worldwide
The SSI Board of Trustees provides strategic oversight, accountability, and stewardship, ensuring Safe Sport International remains independent, evidence-led, and firmly committed to strengthening safeguarding systems across global sport.
Meet the SSI Trustees
SSI is based in the United Kingdom, functioning as a charitable organisation under the oversight of an International Board of Trustees.
The Trustees provide governance, define long term direction and ensure SSI is effectively and properly run by the CEO, with legal and other obligations met.
Malia Arrington
Malia Arrington is Executive Director of the Hollywood Commission on Eliminating Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality. Arrington joined the Hollywood Commission in November 2018 after serving as chief operating officer of the nonprofit U.S. Center for SafeSport. In that post, she helped lead an organisation dedicated to protecting athletes from emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. Earlier, Arrington served as Senior Director at the U.S. Olympic Committee, where she played a key role in developing SafeSport’s mandate and policies.
Arrington is also a founding member of the board of Safe Sport International, which is committed to expanding the tenets of SafeSport around the world. A graduate of Emory University and the University of Virginia School of Law, Arrington came to the field after practicing law in Denver and serving as a Judicial Intern at the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
Babatunde Johnson
Tunde was the Chief Compliance and Business Ethics Officer as well as the General Counsel for Adecco SA globally, based in Zurich. Adecco SA is a Fortune Global 500 company.
He is a lawyer called to the bar in England and Wales by the Inner Temple in 1989. He brought a wealth of industry experience to his role. He has acted as legal advisor to the staffing industry in the United Kingdom (UK), USA, Italy, Spain, Germany and also as an expert for the European Commission (EC) in a review of the different regulatory structures of the European Staffing Industry. He served for many years as an officer of the International Confederation of Private Employment Services (CIETT).
Sasha Martell
Karen Perrier (Chair of Board of Trustees)
Karen Perrier is the former Chief Executive of Money Advice Plus, with a long history of working with vulnerable people in the third and charity sectors. She is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Managers and has a strong background in charity governance and fundraising. Currently, she serves as a Deputy in the Court of Protection. Recognied as an expert in economic abuse, Karen created the Financial Support Line for victims of domestic abuse. She pioneered the delivery of advice through a lens of safety and has been the driving force behind developing and implementing the Economic Abuse Evidence and its training program. This initiative transformed how the Financial Service Sector responds to victim-survivors of economic abuse.
Karen also has a long history of supporting grassroots sports. She served as treasurer and chair for the Brighton Cougars, a Community Amateur Sports Club. During her time at the club, she established safeguarding procedures and developed a pathway for girls in Sussex to play basketball. Additionally, Karen is a level 3 table official and has mentored others to become table officials.
Kim Shore
Kim Shore is a published writer, speaker, and certified Corporate Leadership Coach, widely recognized as a leading safe sport advocate and change agent in Canada. She has testified before parliamentary committees, consulted with the Future of Sport Commission, Canadian Human Rights Commission, and the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, served on both provincial and national sport organization boards and collaborated with dozens of Members of Parliament, Senators, and policy leaders. Additionally, she has lent her voice to help progress federal legislation to end the use of NDAs in silencing whistleblowers and victims of harm and wrongdoing.
As a former gymnast, Kim co-founded the first survivor-led advocacy organization for Canadian gymnasts after over 500 athletes signed an open letter to the government declaring they had experienced abuse in gymnastics. To broaden the reach, she started Project Safe Kids, an initiative dedicated to protecting children from abuse in institutional settings like sports, schools, and community programs. Kim speaks at international conferences, guest lectures at universities, runs workshops for parent of athletes and contributes to national and global conversations about institutional courage, child protection and human rights. Her courageous activism is fueled by a lifelong love of sport, deep desire to prevent abuse and steadfast commitment to drive transformative change to sport governance, culture, and delivery.
Rupert Stebbings
Having spent my initial years after University working for Fitness in Industry in London, I then fell into the financial world quite by accident. That career spanned almost three decades across the UK, US and finally Colombia. In Colombia, I have also served as Honorary Consul in Medellin for almost 10 years, additionally as board member of both Viva Airlines and Set-ICAP. Having now left finance behind I now wish to give back to society and spend a lot of time looking at the local refugee and migrant situation.
I am a keen writer and have published two books, one related to Viva Airlines and another autobiographical. Sports have always been a passion for myself and represented half of my undergraduate studies. SSI will offer me the opportunity to support all of those who wish to participate in sporting activity, be it for leisure or as a career.
Emma Thomas
Emma Thomas is a former Muay Thai fighter, athlete-survivor, writer and activist. She created UnderTheRopes.com in 2013, where she writes about gender inequality, abuse and harassment in her sport. Emma has since been a guest speaker at multiple events by UN Women, as well as South-East Asia’s first gender equality summit, and the British Embassy of Bangkok’s survivor handling conference for police officers.
In Thailand, she connects other athlete-survivors to trauma-informed lawyers, case workers, and counsellors. She also has several years of experience in sports marketing and communications management at Decathlon Thailand.
Alongside her advocacy, Emma has completed a master’s degree in Sports Ethics and Integrity (MAiSI) with an Erasmus Mundus scholarship, through which she conducted the world’s first study on women’s experiences of sexual violence in Muay Thai. She now works with grassroots combat sports gyms to help advance their safeguarding approaches, and has recently given talks on survivor-centred engagement for NOCs and international federations.
Norm Wain
Norm is an adjunct professor at Indiana University where he teaches a graduate sports law course. He sits on the board of directors for the Sports Lawyers Association (SLA), the governance commission for World Athletics, and he serves as the chair of the Advisory Board for Law In Sport, the largest international sports law legal publication. In addition, he was the founding chair for the sports & entertainment committee for the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), where he also served on their national board of directors.
Norm has spoken at both domestic and international conferences and seminars on many sports law-related topics, including safeguarding. Norm received his B.A. Degree from the University of California at Berkeley, along with Phi Beta Kappa Honors, and his J.D. Degree from the Pepperdine University School of Law.
Chiel Warners
Chiel Warners is a decorated Olympic Decathlete. Besides his achievements on the field he has a wealth of experience in sports administration: as athlete representative in several (inter)national sports governing bodies, as a board member and as the coordinator of the National Platform against Matchfixing.
He combines his experience in sport with work in the corporate sector as a tax lawyer and wealth structurer drawing on good practices and synergies where possible. He currently works as an independent consultant on integrity and governance issues in and around sport.
Ieuan Watkins
A retired police officer with 31 years of public service for which he was commended on multiple occasions. His service was predominantly within public protection roles, including national working groups and international deployment for the National Crime Agency.
Over a decade as a lead safeguarding officer in sport, specialising within cricket where he led safeguarding within the recreational game and later the professional game in Wales, steering both organisations to meet and exceed standards, leading to a commendation from the NSPCC Child Protection in Sport Unit. Working with the England and Wales Cricket Board he created the safeguarding function for The Hundred competition, including the recruitment, training, and deployment of specialist event safeguarding officers across England and Wales. He is designated safeguarding lead for the UK Sports Institute, owner of Sport Safeguarding Limited, Lay Advisor for Multi Agency Public Protection in Gwent, Wales and a ‘Child Safeguarding Expert’ for the Council of Europe.
He is strong on culture, collaboration, and responsibility – values that can make a difference operationally and strategically.
Married, with two grown up children, he still plays sport and coaches a women’s softball team.
Professor Ellen M. Zavian
Professor Ellen M. Zavian began her career in sports when she was a student at the University of Maryland where she worked in the university’s intramural sports and recreation department while working at the Maryland Race Tracks in the promotional department on weekends. While earning her law degree, she interned at the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA). Soon after graduation, she became the first female attorney/agent in the NFL. She has represented the US Women’s Soccer and, Softball gold medalists and extreme athletes, collectively, and held the title of Commissioner for the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (NCAA).
Ellen served as coordinator for the NFLPA’s Native American project; is a nationally recognized journalist, and a court expert in licensing/sports agreements. She has served on many sports related committees, including the DC Bar’s Arts, Entertainment, Media and Sports Section and co-created the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Sports & Entertainment committee.