Jan Paterson

After a career in the Olympic and global sport sector, Jan Paterson joined the IOC in 2025 as Chief of Staff in the Executive Office of the IOC President, Kirsty Coventry.

She spent over two decades at the British Olympic Association, first as Chief of Staff and then as Director of Olympic Relations and CEO of the British Olympic Foundation.   Before joining the IOC, she was the Managing Director for Sport at NEOM, a new semi-autonomous region in Saudi Arabia.  She was responsible for creating a unique sporting ecosystem from grassroots to high performance that included asset development, global partnerships and delivery of world class events, driving a sports economy in the new region for an ultimate population of nine million people.

Ms Paterson was also the Deputy Chef de Mission for Team GB at London 2012 and Chef de Mission for Team England at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, and has held various board roles across the private and public sector. In 2019 she was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to Olympic sport. 

She studied business and received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Bath in the United Kingdom.