Associate - Joanna Harrison

After graduating with a Sport Science Hons degree, Joanna joined the English Institute of Sport at its inception in 2002. Shortly after joining the Institute and experiencing the elite sports environment, Joanna became interested in the person behind the performance (the challenges and difficulties they face) and her work moved away from a science background, towards more athlete support focused work.

In 2003 Joanna became an Athlete Career & Education Advisor for the Institute and worked across Olympic & Paralympic Sports including Athletics, Boxing, Swimming and Cycling to name a few. In 2005 the Performance Directors of GB sports were consulted and a more performance focused athlete support service was created, named Performance Lifestyle.

In 2006 Joanna became the Performance Lifestyle advisor for British Cycling working with all riders on GB Olympic and Paralympic World Class programmes. In this role she was responsible for the “off the bike” coaching and mentoring along with supporting the personal development and lifestyle management needs of elite riders across the performance pathway. Early on in her tenure, Joanna was fundamental in setting up British Cycling’s Olympic Academy programme whose graduates include Mark Cavendish, Geraint Thomas and Ed Clancy. Joanna also supported the GB Cycling Team at the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games

In addition, in 2010 Joanna was promoted to Performance Lifestyle Technical Lead where she has technical leadership and line management responsibility for a team of 7 Performance Lifestyle practitioners working across sports in the Northern half of the country.

More recently in December 2013, Joanna was appointed Head of Performance Lifestyle within the English Institute of Sport and now has strategic lead for the discipline and responsibility for the training, supervision and development of a team of 23 coaches working across the whole range of Olympic and Paralympic sports in the UK

Joanna has holds the ILM Level 7 Professional Certificate in Executive Coaching & Leadership Mentoring.