Manchester United set to appoint their first female chief operating officer

Manchester United are set to make Collette Roche the highest-placed woman in the club's history by hiring her as chief operating officer.

Roche, executive director of the Manchester Airports Group (MAG), will become United's first female COO and only the ninth female in an executive position at a football club in England's top four divisions.

She is an advisor to the government's board of trade and a board member of former chancellor George Osborne's Northern Powerhouse project.

At United, Roche will handle the day-to-day running of the business, according to The i.

Before joining MAG, which owns East Midlands Airport, Manchester Airport and Stansted, Roche worked in HR roles at Ford, Siemens and United Water Utilities after graduating from Lancaster University with a degree in business management.

Read more:Meet the FA's first executive tasked with unlocking the commercial power of women's football

Her arrival at United comes soon after the club responded to criticism of being the only top Premier League club not to have a women's side by applying to the Football Association to enter a team into the second tier of women's football, the Women's Championship.

There are currently only a handful of senior female executives working across the 92 clubs in the Premier League and Football League.

In the Premier League, Marina Granovskaia is an influential director at Chelsea, Karren Brady is vice-chairman at West Ham, Susan Whelan is Leicester City's chief executive and Donna-Maria Cullen is Tottenham's executive director where she sits on the board alongside director of football operations Rebecca Caplehorn.

In the Football League, Katrien Meire is chief executive at Championship club Sheffield Wednesday. Carolyn Radford and Helen Taylor both hold the same title at League Two clubs Mansfield Town and Forest Green Rovers respectively.

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