Cricket chief to lead City Centre BID

Roddy Smith, who has been appointed the new Chief Executive of the city centre BID. Pic: Craig Stephen

Essential Edinburgh has appointed the man who will lead the city centre’s Business Improvement District into an exciting new era.

Roddy Smith is set to take up post as Chief Executive of the BID company in March 2015, succeeding Andy Neal, who has worked with the 600 levy-paying businesses to help develop and deliver the £1 million post-tram relaunch of the city centre through the “This is Edinburgh” campaign in conjunction with Marketing Edinburgh and City of Edinburgh Council.

Mr Smith, 46, was at sportscotland for ten years, where he was responsible for the management of the annual investment of over £6 million. In 2004 Smith was appointed as the Chief Executive of Cricket Scotland, and during ten years in the rol he helped raise the profile of the sport in Scotland, including hosting matches with England and Australia in front of crowds of up to 7,000.

Mr Smith said: “This is a wonderful new opportunity that I am looking forward to enormously, and I will work tirelessly to carry forward the excellent work to date by Andy Neal, the Board and the professional staff of Essential Edinburgh.

Denzil Skinner, Chairman of Essential Edinburgh, said: “Roddy was the stand out candidate in what was a rigorous selection process which attracted some excellent applicants. He has the qualities of leadership coupled with operational, partnership and communications skills that we were looking for, and he showed a real grasp of the issues facing the city centre.”