Ron Gordon's 2020 vision is to transform Hibs

Ron Gordon with head coach Jack Ross, sporting director Graeme Mathie and chief executive Leeann Dempster.

Hibs owner Ron Gordon has revealed his desire to see the club being the “most recognised and admired sports brand in Edinburgh”.

Eight months after buying the Capital outfit from Sir Tom Farmer, the American multi-millionaire finally unveiled his vision for the future as he addressed his first annual shareholders’ meeting last night.

Although he’s very much flown under the radar since wiping out the club’s debt and injecting £1.25 million into its coffers, his silence earning him the tag of “the quiet man”, Gordon insisted the intervening period has involved a detailed appraisal of where Hibs currently stand and devising a pathway for the years to come.

The upshot, he revealed, was to have the club run as a financially sustainable, innovative and successful business striving to compete at the top of Scottish football every year while seeking to increase turnover 50 per cent by 2023 and 100 per cent by 2025 and doubling the player budget over the next three years.

Insisting last week’s announcement of Hibs becoming the “greenest club in Scotland” was an indication of how he wanted it to be seen as a creative enterprise, a leader, Gordon also promised a vastly improved match day experience for supporters.

He said: “We want to grow our brand. We have a terrific brand. We want to grow it so it’s one of the most admired, respected and recognised brands in Edinburgh in Scottish sport.

“Football is paramount for everybody, I get that. Football is what everyone is about and we cannot lose sight of that, it’s our primary focus. But, very important and one of our aims, is to improve the game-day experience. We are going to make significant investments over the next six to eight months with video screens, a new audio system, to take the stadium to a new level. It’s already a phenomenal club but I am trying to take what is already very good to even better.”

Gordon revealed that six task forces had been set up to look at different aspects of the club’s operations with employees dispatched to other clubs to see best practices, providing the foundational piece for the strategic plan he was presenting.

But Gordon is also looking to spread Hibs’ wings, disclosing that he intends to establish international club partnerships and to expand and enhance recruitment while also nurturing home-grown talent with those plans already well underway.

He said: “We want to look at other clubs that do great things. We’re in the capital city of Scotland and are a significant club. We should have partnerships and be known in the world.

“We’re talking to at least six clubs in different areas where we can build partnerships at the professional, academy, coaching and commercial level. One of the values we have in our plan is we want to be a learning club, we never stop learning.”

Revealing Hibs are already working with three clubs in Europe and two in the United States, he said: “We’re talking to one that has a phenomenal academy. We’d like to invite one of their coaches to come for a year and be an academy coach with us. We might send some of our players to go to their academy for a summer.

“Commercial-wise, I look to the US. I have commitments from one club that they will host us and give us access to all their business intelligence, which is amazing.”

Gordon also firmly believes Scottish football badly undersells itself.

He said: “One of my biggest beefs with the SPFL is that we don’t do enough to promote the game, to grow the game – to give it value. Hibs is definitely going to advocate that kind of position and advocate for some action around that.”