St Johnstone to appoint Francis Smith as new CEO

St Johnstone are set to announce Francis Smith as their new CEO.

Courier Sport understands that Smith, who has carrying out the equivalent role with Saints in the Community, has been identified as the man to replace Stan Harris and that the appointment will soon be confirmed.

New owner Adam Webb has long known that Harris, who was brought back to McDiarmid Park by Geoff Brown to deal with worrying financial losses, was only continuing in an interim capacity.

Now that Webb has decided Smith will succeed him, Harris will step away from his position.

A former Scottish hurdler, Smith was the National Club Manager at Scottish Athletics and a Changing Lives Champion at Sport Scotland before taking up his community post at McDiarmid Park.

Before choosing to appoint Smith, Webb outlined the job description for the key role in the off-field operation while he was in Perth earlier this month.

Business focus

“It’s a huge job,” he said. “We need someone with high energy, total dedication and with, obviously, a lot of organisational ability.

“We have football people in place – Gus (MacPherson), Craig (Levein), Andy (Kirk), Roddy (Grant) – who eat, sleep and breathe football.

“We need to grow our commercial, business initiatives. The focus of our CEO position will be business and not football.

“There are weeks on end when we are not here so it’s absolutely essential that we get the right pick that understands what we’re looking for and has the same mindset.

“Having that buy-in is going to be huge because they’re going to be our daily eyes and ears.

“There will be a lot of communicating. Making sure that there’s no lapses.

“No one is going to be making the excuse: ‘Hey, you were in America, we didn’t think you wanted to know’.

“That’s the way for the first couple of years at least while we get everything going in the direction we want.”