Forging a pathway to building workforce recognition

In February of 2026, Pearce was officially sworn in as the new chair of the board of trustees for the Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity. But despite having previously served forty years and multiple roles in law enforcement, his new position at CIMSPA isn’t his first sporting rodeo, as Move Professional discovers.

Policing

Growing up on the Kent coast, Trevor’s school days were self-admittedly ‘unremarkable’, aside from the view from his Dover-based school’s classroom window.

“My secondary career in particular was spent mainly looking out of the window of our school across to France. On a good day, you could see the clock tower at Calais, which may be the reason why I left school with very few qualifications,” joked Pearce.

However, Trevor’s intention was always to join the police after completing his studies. He joined his local force aged 19, learning his trade in the criminal investigations department, the drugs squad and professional standards positions. He then took on more senior roles in special branch and major crime investigation.

In 1998, after 23 years of experience with Kent Police, which included developing intelligence models and even special operations involving the Channel Tunnel, Pearce took on the position as Director General of the newly established National Crime Squad. This was followed by a spell in the same role at the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), before finishing his policing career as Director of Investigations at the National Crime Agency (NCA).

In recognition of his services to law and order, Pearce was awarded the Queen’s Police Medal (QPM) in 2006, followed by a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 2014.

Sporting roots

A career as a professional athlete never seemed to be an option in Trevor’s youth. Nonetheless, sport and physical activity continued to play an important role in Trevor’s life, whether that be participating or just watching.

“I did all the usual stuff at school. A bit of football, cricket, rugby, athletics, basketball, but I was complete jack of all trades, a master of none, and I wasn’t the most coordinated. So, it was more enthusiasm than anything else,” said Pearce.

“I carried on playing rugby until my late 20s, then family and work commitments took over. Other than a bit of badminton or squash, I didn’t really do much until I reached my 50s. Then I started getting into exercise classes. Things like resistance exercise and TRX. It’s really important to keep moving as you get older.

“I’m still a rugby fan, but from the comfort of my seat at Franklin’s Gardens. I’m a season ticket holder at Northampton Saints. It’s great to be part of something that feels like one big community.”

From law enforcement to regulation

Coming to the end of a 40-year stint in policing, a conversation with a former boss then lit the fire for Trevor to forge a new path – one still not a million miles away from his previous career, as he explained:

“I became a commissioner of the Gambling Commission. I did that for eight years, and I chaired the National Lottery Committee for the Gambling Commission for most of that. Things like integrity, standards, regulation and even money laundering are areas where I’d had previous experience, so it was good fit.”

Again, it was more conversations with former colleagues that finally brought Trevor into the sport and physical activity sector. He then joined the board of UK Anti-Doping (UKAD), the national body responsible for creating a UK-wide environment of confidence in clean sport, helping athletes to understand and follow the rules.

After a year on the board, he became Chair of UKAD, and again found himself suitably experienced for the position, as Pearce added:

“Having an interest in sport, an interest in how the drugs sectors operated and an interest in governance as well, it all seemed to piece together.”

During his eight-and-a-half-year spell with the independent public body, Pearce was part of a team responsible for establishing an anti-doping assurance framework for national governing bodies (NGBs) of sport, adding:

“We recognised that we really needed to bring everyone into the response to doping to ensure accountability and that they’re protecting their own sports. So, we drew up key elements from the national anti-doping policy and the world anti-doping code and worked with 163 governing bodies across the UK that fall under the policy.

“We worked with them in the first year to demonstrate and evidence that they were compliant and got everyone compliant. We then started to have probably 10 or 15 more detailed assurance reviews of the sports with more risk related to them.

“It was difficult because some sports have a lot less funding than others, but they’ve got to meet the same requirements. Some NGBs will have a team of 7–8 people in an integrity or anti-doping department, others will just have a volunteer doing it from their kitchen table at the weekend.

“We worked with them all to develop the framework. I think we got a really good response. I think it tied us together more in terms of the education. We had great support from the home country sports councils, too.”

Pearce was also keen to point out that anti-doping was just one part of a wider sports integrity piece that collectively needed exploring with sports. This includes harassment, falsification of qualification and coach behaviour – all areas that provided useful insight into his next big move…

CIMSPA

After completing eight and a half years at UKAD and bringing together nearly 50 years of experience, Trevor officially joined CIMSPA and spoke about what made the position so appealing to him:

“It’s about standards, it’s about regulation, it’s about integrity. It’s about making sure that there’s good and proper governance, both within CIMSPA as a chartered body, but also across the sector,” said Pearce.

“CIMSPA is full of good people working hard for the right ends. When you’ve had a sort of a working career as long as mine, it’s easy to see that. We’ve got a good board, too, with a real range of great professional skills and membership experience that we’re going to build on.”

Trevor was similarly complimentary about the work that’s ongoing in collaboration with the sector workforce, employers and educational establishments, adding:

“It’s important we respect and understand everyone’s motivation for doing what they do. Someone who’s running one of the big leisure outfits is as much of CIMSPA member as someone running a Zumba class in a church hall, no matter what their professional status. Also, the way that we’re integrating with education partners stands out for me. I love the idea that if you’re doing your sports and exercise degree somewhere, you can also qualify as a practitioner. I think that makes real sense and gives learners real credibility.

“The work CIMSPA is doing to bring together educational establishments and employers to support the development of local skills boards – collaborating to ensure the right training is delivered in the right places, at the right time – is making a real difference to communities across the UK. Then there’s our recent Sport and Physical Activity Employability Academy launch – a partnership with the DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) is connecting jobseekers with real employment opportunities in the sector by aligning training, work experience and local employer demand. Our sector has never been in a better position to help to tackle some of the employment challenges the country currently faces.”

CIMSPA’s regulatory responsibilities are closely linked to its work with national governing bodies for sport (NGBs) as part of Sport England’s Workforce Governance and Registration Scheme Project. These also draw comparisons to Pearce’s previous successes, particularly his work with UKAD’s assurance framework.

“I’m very familiar with the frameworks CIMSPA works to under the Privy Council as a chartered institute and as a charity under the Charity Commission rules,” said Pearce.

“We’ve also got regulatory oversight to tackle as part of our workforce governance project remit and it’s a part of the journey for a safer sector for the workforce and for participants. We know that getting sports ‘register ready’ is not without its challenges, but having their buy-in that it’s the right thing to do is key to its success. We definitely have that consensus as we move into a new phase of work on it.”