As a child, James Bulley was mad about sport and wanted to be a PE teacher. His ambitions to carve out a career in sport, however, were somewhat overruled by his parents, who preferred him to go out and make it in the business world. He decided to do both – after becoming a chartered surveyor, Bulley began looking for every opportunity to get involved with sport venues.
He did this very succesfully and in 2005 landed a dream job – Bulley was appointed director of venues and infrastructure for LOCOG (The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games).
His brief was huge – to transform a derelict part of East London into a world class Olympic park capable of hosting 10,500 athletes and nine million visitors in just six weeks. His success in delivering that earned him an OBE in The Queen’s New Year’s honours list in 2012.
Following the London 2012 Games, James teamed up with three fellow members of the LOCOG infrastructure team – Paul May, Guy Lodge and Jonathan Branson – to set up Trivandi Major Project Consultants. Like Bulley, May is a chartered surveyor, while Lodge’s background is in the events industry and Branson has worked in the sport and venue development industry. Between them, Bulley and his Trivandi colleagues have almost a century of experience in the delivery of major projects.
What was your first job or project in sport?
In 1995 I was working for Drivers Jonas and was fortunate to be appointed as the project manager for the construction of the Britannia Stadium in Stoke-on-Trent. It was a 27,000 seat stadium and had to be delivered in a ridiculously short timeframe and budget.
It was all hands to the pump and to get the job done and I found myself doing everything from leading design and budget meetings to helping out with operations on the first night, marshalling crowds and replenishing toilet rolls. It really was “cradle to grave” service delivery in its truest sense.
Could you describe your career journey so far
I realised pretty quickly that there were a lot of sports and venue developments going on but few professionals saw this as a serious part of their business. The opportunity was there for me to package and present what I was doing in the construction and property world and offer it as a sport sector-focused service. In other words we were providing specialist property and construction expertise to sports clubs and developers of sports venues. No one had done that before and it opened up a world of opportunities for our business.
I got involved in Wembley, Murrayfield, Everton, Leeds United, Swansea FC, Coventry’s Ricoh Arena, KC Stadium in Hull, Keepmoat Stadium in Doncaster, ExCeL and Benfica’s Stadium in Portugal.
When the London 2012 Bid came along, the Bid team needed someone who understood venues, from financing, design, construction and operation. My name came up several times and so I got the call to help them with the venue and legacy planning for the venues. When we won the bid I was asked to stay on as Director of Venues and Infrastructure for LOCOG, the organising committee.
It was a job you couldn’t turn down. At the end of the Games I turned to three of my colleagues, Guy Lodge, Paul May and Jonathan Branson and we said we can’t leave it there. We’d learned so much from delivering and operating the venues for the Games, we saw an opportunity to form a business providing strategic consulting, project management and assurance of major projects in the sport, leisure and events sector.
This expertise is now available to organisations and developers and our business is focused just on this sector.
Describe the experience of being responsible for the Olympic Park
It was the most challenging and high pressured environment you could imagine. The spotlight was always on and the expectation from the public, media and the world of sport was huge. You couldn’t do anything in a half-baked way. As our CEO, Lord Deighton, would say to us, you have to do the best work of your lives, every day. But we knew what we had to do and it was a tremendous privilege and honour to play such a significant part in delivering the Olympic and Paralympic Games. To work alongside so many great people was truly inspiring. To be involved in something of international and national importance, you felt truly proud. I always wanted to compete for my country in a sport when I was a kid but didn’t have the talent to reach the top level but, as Seb Coe once put it, this was our way of pulling on the shirt to represent our country.
What was the most challenging aspect?
The scale. My team was responsible for delivering over 120 competition venues, training venues, operational centres and support venues. We were the client for the new permanent venues delivered by the ODA and had direct delivery responsibility for venues such as beach volleyball in Horse Guards Parade, the Hockey venue in the Olympic Park and the equestrian venue in Greenwich Park. We had to structure and grow venue management and operations teams from scratch. All of these tasks had their complexities and challenges. What we had to learn was where to spend our time most effectively and to trust our delivery and operational teams.
And the most rewarding?
On day five of the Games I stood on the bridge beside the Aquatics Centre watching people arriving. I felt by then that we’d cracked it. Our operations teams were looking relaxed and comfortable, confident in what they were doing. The volunteers, the Games makers, were having fun and just being themselves and the spectators were looking in awe at the venues and the beautifully landscaped park, stopping to take photos every few steps. I knew then that nine years of hard work had been worth it. It was going to be a success.
The public had embraced it and people were really enjoying the moment.
How would you describe your emotions after the Games?
My first emotion was disbelief – I couldn’t believe it was over. I hung around the Olympic Stadium until 5am the morning after the Closing Ceremony just watching the bump out of the ceremony installations and not wanting to go home.
My second thought was massive relief that it had passed without a major incident. Any stadium or leisure manager who runs an event will understand exactly what I mean by that, because you carry a lot of pressure and responsibility for the safety of the public and the athletes and performers.
But the job wasn’t done then, it wasn’t completed until the last venue had been deconstructed and the sites or venues handed back.
At that point, we did stop and say job well done – and that was in February of 2013. As we come to a year after the Games it still feels very real and not long ago. I feel a strong sense of pride in what we all achieved and very honoured to have played a part in it.
When was the idea to set up Trivandi conceived?
After you’ve done a job like the Olympics it’s natural to think “OK, what next?”. In October 2012 I went to the World Triathlon Championships in Auckland and travelled around New Zealand for two weeks.
For the first time in a while I had some down-time and was able to stop and think. Some of my senior colleagues had mentioned about getting together after the Games so I drafted a business plan for Trivandi. When I got back I handed it to three of them – the senior team that delivered the venues for LOCOG for the Games. They all said quite quickly, “I’m in” so it all went from there.
Who are you targeting with Trivandi?
It’s all in the name – we are the Venues and Infrastructure team from LOCOG (known as VandI) who delivered the temporary venues and infrastructure for the Games as well as acting as client for the permanent venues delivered by the ODA. We offer three areas of service (Tri) including strategic consulting, project management and technical assurance on the delivery of major projects in the sport, leisure and event sectors – put the two together and you get Trivandi.
What project(s) are you working on at the moment?
We’re providing advice and guidance to organising committees of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the delivery of their venues as well as assurance to the board of directors for event delivery in the UK. We’re also providing advice on the delivery of two major schemes with sport and leisure attractions at their core. Our clients have requested that we do not publicise our involvement in the schemes at this stage.
What are the future plans for Trivandi?
Our strategic plan is to create a leading, independent project consultancy, driven by excellence, which inspires new standards for major projects and events. We will work on new build projects, refurbishments and overlay projects, putting teams in place to manage and deliver sport and leisure facilities for our clients both here in the UK and internationally. We aim to grow to a team of around 50 people in three years’ time.
