https://www.quins.us/news/-david-ellis-to-resign-from-harlequin-fc/

DAVID ELLIS TO STEP DOWN FROM HARLEQUINS
Thursday, 25th July 2019 @ 12:00


HARLEQUINS HAS ANNOUNCED THAT DAVID ELLIS HAS STEPPED DOWN AS ITS CHIEF EXECUTIVE

David Ellis commented: “I have decided to step down as Chief Executive of Harlequin F.C. After eight fantastic years, it has been a very hard decision as I love both this job and this Club. Having said that I recognised when I joined that I was only a temporary custodian. Now is the right time for me to seek a new challenge and to make way for someone to take us on the next stage of our journey.

“Harlequins is in great shape and I believe our brightest and best times lie ahead. I've experienced both incredible highs and heart-breaking lows, but such is the essence of the sport we love.

“Throughout my time at Harlequins, I have been humbled and inspired by our extraordinary people. They make this Club the special place it is. I am immensely grateful to them all for having had the opportunity to work with them. I am also extremely appreciative to our supporters, our commercial partners, our local clubs and our schools who work tirelessly and passionately towards helping us build a stronger and better Harlequins.

“It has been an honour and a privilege to serve this wonderful club.”

Harlequins’ Chairman David Morgan thanked David Ellis for his contribution to the Club and added:

“David has been an outstanding Chief Executive of Harlequin F.C. and has made a tremendous contribution.

“From the outset he recognised, embraced and strengthened the Harlequin values that we all love and which make us unique.

“David has nurtured sponsorship relationships with world-class commercial partners, established our relationship with New Zealand Rugby and driven our digital presence. He has overseen the formation of the Harlequin Foundation and championed parity for our women’s team.

“As a result of David’s leadership match days at The Stoop are enjoyed by many and the annual Big Game continues to be the best attended club rugby fixture in the world. He has also provided valuable input on our plans for a new stadium.

“These are exciting times for rugby and for Harlequins and we agree with David that the best times lie ahead. We are determined to improve our performance and succeed on the field and in addition, to achieve commercial sustainability.

“David will remain with the club whilst we look for his successor. He will therefore help get the 2019/20 season off to a strong start and intends to step down after Big Game 12 in December.

“Under David’s leadership, Harlequins has achieved much and we respect his decision to move on. He leaves with our sincere thanks and with our best wishes for his and his family’s future endeavours.

“Nunquam Dormio.”

Well that puts the future of the club in jeopardy at just the wrong time.

Could be the start of a new era! I’m sure there’s plenty out there willing and able to take over .

An interesting time to go when the new stadium should be moving forward.
 - New Zealand relationship - what relationship?
 - Digital prescence - like what? a website?
 - Annual Big Game - I think a thank you to Mark Evans may be a better idea
I appreciate running a rugby club cannot be easy but a lack of communication and keeping Kingston far too long may be more of his legacy.

We pay the highest wages in the premiership, have one of the biggest deficits. Not sure he was a great money man either. Never doubted he was a serious Harlequins fan and wanted what's best for the club. Just not sure what he delivered apart from the All Black connection. The Big Game was Mark Evans legacy, not hard to take over and keep going.

I'm wondering if he has not hit his targets so he was encouraged to go.

What has he achieved?

He put a more "professional" ethos to the club, diversified the use of the stadium during the summer.

I'm struggling to decide what else. He was brought in to get the club to at least break even. That didn't happen (albeit not entirely his fault).

Money was spent on a partnership in USA which didnt work.

The New Zealand partnership seems to not be clear in what the positive impact will be for Quins.

He is a nice guy and pleasant to speak to but I am not sure he understood the needs of rugby from a business point of view.

I don’t think he has been encouraged to leave by the club as they would have lined up somebody else to take over more quickly.
Unless his current contract has a year to run and he’s on gardening leave for the final six months after saying now that he will not be renewing it. Who knows what’s in his contract. We can all speculate but until the reasons are leaked, that’s all we can do.
It does seem that nobody knows what impact he has had on the club as there was no list of HIS achievements in the news release other than signing up a few sponsors and the NZ partnership.