Holly Hunter Now Leads People at the Premier League

Holly Hunter is the Premier League’s new Head of People after more than seven years inside the league office. Appointment notes that circulated in June 2026 named the former Senior People Manager to the post.

She now holds the people title at a London headquarters the league counted at 388 UK staff in November 2025. Football’s attention stayed on managers, transfers and a new statutory regulator.

Holly Hunter Takes Charge of People After Seven Years

Hunter joined as People Executive, then People Manager, then Senior People Manager. The June 2026 title is the fourth people job she has held at the same employer, and the first that puts her name on the function football rarely discusses.

The Premier League is a private company owned by its 20 clubs, formed on 20 February 1992, with a special share held by the Football Association. Its head office is in the Brunel Building at 57 North Wharf Road in Paddington, a canalside block the league has occupied since the building let in 2019. From there it runs football operations, youth and coach development, safeguarding, community programmes, broadcast, commercial work, communications, marketing, digital, finance, legal and policy.

The competition reaches about 900 million homes in 189 countries. The people who sell that product, police its rules and write the standards clubs must meet are not on the teamsheet. Hunter’s new title is the job that looks after them.

She holds a BA (Honours) in Business Management from Newcastle University. Public career listings also say she is pursuing a CIPD Level 7 certificate, the advanced people qualification aimed at senior HR posts. Before the league she spent more than two years at Swarovski in operations and HR support roles, not at a club, the FA or the PFA.

The People Function Already Has a Chief Officer

Head of People is not the top people job in the building. Rachael Taylor-Jenkins became Chief People Officer in August 2025 after 19 years at Experian, most recently as Group HR Director for central functions. Career listings also place her as CIPD qualified, with an earlier stretch as UK Banking HR Director at Barclays.

A People Partner advert that closed on 29 March 2026 told applicants they would feed analysis to a Head of People Partnering and a Director of People. A separate People-department listing for Head of Reward, Systems and Services said that post would partner with the Chief People Officer and the Remuneration Committee on executive pay. The league is building a corporate people stack with named centres for partnering, reward, systems and advice, the same pattern used in a bank or a listed company.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The title: Appointment notes in June 2026 named Holly Hunter as Head of People after she served as Senior People Manager.
• The CPO: Rachael Taylor-Jenkins has held Chief People Officer since August 2025, arriving from Experian.
• The office: The league counted 388 UK-based staff on 7 November 2025 and pays at least the London Living Wage, including to agency workers.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The reporting line: No public org chart shows whether Head of People reports to the CPO, sits beside Director of People, or replaces that title.
• The newsroom: The league has not posted a matching announcement on its own news site, so the precise start date and remit remain those in the appointment notes.
• The overlap: Head of People, Head of People Partnering and Director of People all appeared in 2025-26 materials; whether they are three seats or a rename is not published.

That gap matters because mill copy around the appointment talked as if Hunter would lead the whole people agenda. The CPO seat was already filled. The honest read is a new Head of People inside a function that already has a chief, a director title on an advert, and a reward brief aimed at the board’s pay committee.

388 Staff and a Senior Table That Is 30% Women

On 11 November 2025 the league published its own workforce mix, even though FA Rule N does not require it to. The snapshot is dated 7 November 2025 and covers 388 UK-based Premier League employees, with an 80.9% response rate. Forty-three of them, 11%, are board members or senior leaders.

HQ STAFF MIX VERSUS CLUBS

The London office is much closer to national gender balance than the clubs it regulates on EDI. It is still short of 51.0% women in the country at large, and the senior table is further off. Among board members and senior leaders, men are 65.0% and women are 30%. Other staff are 47.5% women. Five-year targets set in 2021 asked for 42% female staff and 18% of staff from ethnically under-represented groups by July 2026. The league marked both as achieved in that November filing.

THE SENIOR GAP IN THE SAME FILING

• 388 UK staff: Snapshot dated 7 November 2025, 80.9% of them self-declared.
• 43 senior seats: 11% of the headcount sits on the board or in senior leadership.
• 30% women at the top: Senior ranks are 65.0% men, 30% women and 5.0% prefer not to say.
• Black share at senior level: 4.8% of the whole workforce, 0% of board and senior leaders in the declared figures.

White staff are 78.1% overall and 82.5% at senior level. Asian or Asian British staff are 7.1% overall and 5.0% senior. Mixed or multiple ethnic groups are 5.1% and 2.5%. Other ethnic groups are 2.6% overall and 0% senior. Ten percent of senior leaders preferred not to give an ethnic group. Disability is declared by 6.6% of staff, against a national figure of 17.8% that includes people who are retired or unable to work.

Neil Saunders, the league’s Director of Football, has said the coaching workforce still does not match the mix of players or of the country. Hunter’s in-tray is the office version of that problem: a headquarters that already hit its 2026 staff targets and still shows a senior table that is 30% women and, in the declared numbers, has no Black board or senior leaders.

PLEDIS and Safeguarding Are Written in This Office

The people function does not stop at Paddington. Clubs work through the league’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Standard, launched in 2021. Each club names a designated Equality Lead Officer. Evidence goes to an independent panel against Preliminary, Intermediate and Advanced levels, covering culture, policies, leadership and people as well as how the club treats fans and communities.

WHAT THE OFFICE ASKS OF CLUBS

• PLEDIS levels: Clubs submit evidence on policies, leadership, learning, inclusion and discrimination; an independent panel awards the level.
• The league’s own grade: It took the same assessment, reached Preliminary in March 2025, and has moved on to Intermediate.
• Club take-up: An April 2026 No Room For Racism update said 27 current or former Premier League clubs sit in the standard, with 18 at Advanced.
• Safeguarding posts: Club rules require a board-level Senior Safeguarding Lead and a full-time Head of Safeguarding whose sole job is that brief, unless the league agrees otherwise.

The league also put money behind the pipeline those standards describe. It has invested £2.25 million via the FA to develop the wider football workforce, with a focus on women’s football staff, and has supported more than 1,200 young people through leadership courses, training and mentoring. Club employees across the pyramid have been given full bursaries for the Women in Football Leadership Course.

Safeguarding is a parallel paper trail. The league says it keeps a Safeguarding Team and a board-level Safeguarding Champion, refreshes the policy every year, and subjects the team to independent audits. Club safeguarding standards still carry the Brunel Building address. Someone in that office owns the people systems that sit under those rules. Hunter’s title now puts her in that chain, even if the CPO owns the strategy slide.

What Does a Premier League Head of People Do?

The Head of People title at the Premier League is a senior HR post in the London company, not a job at a club. The brief is the league’s own staff, from broadcast and commercial teams to safeguarding, legal and policy, in an office that already has a Chief People Officer in post since 2025.

The March 2026 People Partner advert is the clearest public description of how that function talks about itself. The role was hybrid, based in London, and asked for first-line advice on policies, employee relations, coaching of managers, and people data on engagement, absence, turnover and performance. It also asked the holder to help embed diversity and inclusion across departments and to work with centres of expertise on talent, reward, development and culture.

Scale is still growing. The league’s tenth modern slavery statement, approved by the board on 16 January 2026 and signed by chair Alison Brittain, covers the financial year to 31 July 2025. It records subsidiaries in the United States, China and India, and a new in-house production company, Premier League Studios Limited, that was due to become fully operational on 1 June 2026. That is the same month Hunter’s title changed. All UK-based staff, including agency workers, are paid at least the London Living Wage. Mandatory modern slavery training was scheduled again for August 2026. A whistleblowing policy was refreshed in January 2026. No modern slavery cases were reported in FY 24/25.

Hunter does not hire managers for the 20 clubs and she does not pick England coaches. She does inherit the office that writes PLEDIS, staffs safeguarding, onboards Studios and runs hybrid HR for a company whose product is the league.

Swarovski, Newcastle and a CIPD Level 7 Course

The appointment is an internal one, and the CV is operations-first. Swarovski is a crystal and luxury brand, not a football employer. Hunter’s titles there were HR and Operations Intern, Business and Operations Assistant, then HR and Business Services Coordinator, across more than two years. That is a coordinator path, then a seven-year climb through three people grades at the league, then Head of People.

HUNTER’S PATH INTO THE TITLE

1. Before 2019: More than two years at Swarovski in intern, assistant and HR coordinator posts, after a BA (Honours) in Business Management from Newcastle University.
2. People Executive: First league people job, covering HR operations, the employee lifecycle and talent support as headcount grew.
3. People Manager: Broader HR and organisational work, including people processes and employee development programmes.
4. Senior People Manager: Partnered with leaders on workforce planning, employee experience, talent work and people strategy.
5. June 2026: Named Head of People, the fourth people title in more than seven years at the same organisation.

Public listings also record earlier stints as a chalet host and as internships in communications and social media, plus a work placement at Royal Bank of Scotland. The professional bet she is making now is the Level 7 senior people qualification from the CIPD, which is set at postgraduate level and is the usual classroom route toward chartered membership. Taylor-Jenkins already holds CIPD status and a CPO title. Hunter is still on the Level 7 certificate while holding Head of People. That is a different profile: an internal operator still sitting the exam the incoming chief already passed.

Club Executives Now Face a Statutory Fitness Test

The other new people regime in English football does not report to Hunter. On 21 July 2025 the Football Governance Act became law, creating the Independent Football Regulator to protect clubs and give supporters a formal place in the system. A shadow regulator had already been at work in 2024. The Act followed the failed European Super League breakaway and a run of clubs in financial trouble. Licensing and owners’ tests sit with that office, not with the Brunel Building people team.

David Ornstein said in January 2026 that the Premier League had appointed Rebecca Caplehorn, a Tottenham executive of more than 10 years, as chief football officer in place of Tony Scholes. That hire was treated as football news. Hunter’s promotion, three months later in the same calendar, was treated as an HR notice. One job faces clubs on the sporting side. The other faces the 388 people who keep the company running, plus the EDI and safeguarding paper clubs file.

The 10-year diversity targets set in 2021 still ask, by July 2031, for women to make up 40% of the board and 50% of the workforce, and for ethnically under-represented groups to make up 20% of the board and 30% of the workforce. The league said in November 2025 that it is reviewing those targets. Premier League Studios was due to be fully operational on 1 June 2026, the same month the Head of People title landed. The in-tray grew on both dates.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Holly Hunter at the Premier League?

She is the league’s Head of People, named in June 2026 after more than seven years in its people team. Career listings also show a chalet-host post at Yse Chalet Holidays, internships at Vine Trust Charity and Social Thinkking, and a work placement at Royal Bank of Scotland before the Swarovski and Premier League roles.

How many staff work at the Premier League?

The league’s own snapshot for 7 November 2025 covers 388 people in the UK only, with 80.9% responding and 41.0% of the declared workforce aged 25 to 34. That count does not include staff at the US, China and India subsidiaries, or the Studios company that was due to go fully live on 1 June 2026.

What is PLEDIS in the Premier League?

It is the league’s EDI standard, launched in 2021 as a successor to the Premier League Equality Standard created in 2015. Clubs submit evidence to an independent panel, each names an Equality Lead Officer, and the tests include the Equality Act characteristics from age and sex through to pregnancy and maternity.

Who is the Premier League’s Chief People Officer?

Rachael Taylor-Jenkins, in post from 2025, holds a BSc in Management Sciences from the University of Hull and has been a trustee of The Poppy Factory since 2024. Listings also give her a Barclays UK Banking HR Director role from 1999 to 2006 before the 19-year Experian stretch that preceded the league job.

What did Holly Hunter do before joining the Premier League?

She spent more than two years at Swarovski in three named posts: HR and Operations Intern, Business and Operations Assistant, and HR and Business Services Coordinator. Those jobs were administration, employee services and business operations, not football operations.