HORSE Sport Ireland has confirmed that Jane Williams, Managing Director of the Sia Group, has been engaged to carry out a review of the Senior Show Jumping High Performance Programme.

Horse Sport Ireland announced that they would carry out the review following the show jumping team's performance in Madrid, where the team did not achieve Olympic qualification. Ireland still has a chance of securing up to two individual show jumping places at the London games.

The purpose of the review will be to identify the key factors that contributed to the Irish team's non-qualification for the Olympic Games and will make recommendations for changes in the programme for the future.

As part of the review the riders and team management as well as Horse Sport Ireland and Irish Sports Council personnel will be interviewed.

All such interviews will be one-to-one with Ms. Williams, and no views will be attributed to any individual in the review.

Ms. Williams has a huge amount of experience in business consultancy and has facilitated two strategic plans for the Irish Sports Council and recently she facilitated Motor Sport Ireland's strategy and has carried out other consultancy work for that organisation.

Recently she has been working with The Irish Amateur Boxing Association (IABA) on their strategy, which will be finalised shortly.

Horse Sport Ireland Chairman Joe Walsh said that Ms. Williams was a person of stature and independence and he looked forward to receiving her report.

"We hope to have a draft report for the consideration of the board at their first meeting in 2012 which will be in late January," he said.

About Jane Williams

Jane Williams has run a successful consultancy practice for over 20 years with clients in the private, public and voluntary sectors. Her expertise inprogramme evaluation has been applied to the enterprise, education and sports sectors.

She has a strong background in public policy. She is currently Chairperson of the Irish Pensions Board. She was a member of the Forfás Board for eight years (and interim CEO for a nine month period).

She has been a member of the Board of EirGrid plc, the National Competitiveness Council, the Irish Universities Quality Board, the Tourism Council, and a number of other private and public Boards. She is a CEDR accredited mediator. While Jane is not currently involved in the equestrian sector she rode when she was growing up.