Adapt and learn: GB Snowsport finds its edge
GB Snowsport's CEO Vicky Gosling shares how she steered her team through tough sporting and financial challenges – transforming it into its strongest version yet.
For me, resilience at an organisational level isn’t just about surviving challenges, it’s about how quickly you adapt, learn and come back stronger. At GB Snowsport, resilience means being able to operate effectively despite uncertainty, whether that’s the unpredictability of sport or funding fluctuations.
We’ve built structures that allow us to plan long-term while staying agile day-to-day. That includes diversifying income, empowering people to make decisions and maintaining absolute clarity of purpose. Resilience is now part of our DNA: it’s the discipline, adaptability and belief that keep us moving forward, no matter the conditions.
Building sporting resilience
The Beijing Olympics were a turning point for us. While we didn’t come home with medals, we left with something arguably more important: proof that British athletes could compete shoulder-to-shoulder with the best in the world. We had multiple top 10 finishes, finalists across more disciplines than ever before and clear evidence that our system was working.
We immediately bounced back with a record-breaking season. British athletes delivered multiple World Championship titles and Crystal Globes, the best results in our nation’s history.
It showed that the groundwork we’d laid – the coaching structures, data-driven performance systems and unified ‘One Team’ culture – were delivering tangible results. Beijing wasn’t an end point, it was the launchpad. It proved to the world, and to us, that Britain belongs among the world’s top winter sports nations.
Building financial resilience
Like many Olympic and Paralympic sports, GB Snowsport has faced significant funding challenges. Our sport covers 12 disciplines (from Alpine and Freestyle to Para Nordic and Snowboard), yet public funding levels are limited and often focused on immediate medal potential rather than long-term growth.
To address this, we’ve diversified. We’ve built strong commercial partnerships like the one with McGill and Partners, developed new private funding models and introduced tighter financial discipline. These steps are helping us move from dependency to stability, allowing us to plan confidently for Milan-Cortina 2026 and beyond.
Collaboration with our sponsors has been absolutely critical in helping us withstand disruption and navigate ongoing resource constraints. Public funding alone simply isn’t enough to sustain 12 disciplines at a world-class level, and so the flexibility that commercial partnerships bring has been a game-changer.
What's more, our sponsors don’t just provide funding, they provide belief. Partners like McGill and Partners have stepped in at pivotal moments, allowing us to keep our athletes training and progressing when budgets were tight. Without that support, we wouldn’t have been able to deliver our southern hemisphere training programme this summer, which was vital for maintaining athlete readiness and competitiveness heading into the new season.
That’s what real partnership looks like: shared purpose, shared ambition and shared investment in British success.
Focusing on progress
As I learnt through my military career in the RAF, when you’re leading through uncertainty, especially with funding pressures or public scrutiny, morale depends on two things: honesty and purpose. I’m always transparent with the team about the challenges we face, but I balance that with clarity about what we can control. People don’t lose motivation because things are hard. They lose it when they feel powerless or in the dark.
We focus on progress, not pressure, celebrating small wins, reinforcing the impact of every role and reminding everyone why we do this. Our athletes and staff are driven by belief, not budgets, and that shared purpose is what keeps the energy high even when the circumstances are tough.
Former RAF Group Captain Vicky Gosling now leads GB Snowsport.
Building agility, responding fast
Preparing GB Snowsport to adapt quickly starts with mindset and structure. We can’t predict every challenge, whether it’s rule changes, injuries or even geopolitical and environmental disruptions, but we can build the agility to respond fast.
We’ve created clear decision frameworks, empowered leaders at every level, and built strong communication channels so information moves quickly, and decisions aren’t bottlenecked. We also scenario-plan, from travel disruptions to snow conditions, so the team is never reacting for the first time.
Most importantly, we’ve embedded a culture that sees change not as a setback, but as a fundamental aspect of the sport. That adaptability is now one of our competitive advantages.
Staying calm and consistent
My advice to other CEOs is that resilience isn’t built in the crisis, it’s built long before it. It starts with clarity of purpose, honest communication and empowering people to make decisions when things change.
Create systems that are flexible, not fragile. Diversify your revenue, invest in your people, and make learning part of the culture so setbacks become feedback, not failure.
Most importantly, lead with calm and consistency. When pressure hits, your people will mirror your behaviour. If they see focus and composure from the top, they’ll respond in the same way. That’s how organisations don’t just survive disruption, they grow stronger through it.
Vicky Gosling OBE
Chief Executive, GB Snowsport
© McGill and Partners | GB Snowsport 2025-2026
