International Women's Day: Sky Sports' Sara Chenery on Her Meteoric Rise Through the Ranks

From secretary to senior director: Sky Sports' Sara Chenery on her meteoric rise through the ranks By Heather McLean, Editor

Thursday, March 3, 2022 - 08:41

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Sara Chenery, senior director and team lead at Sky Sports, directing the Anthony Joshua fight against Andy Ruiz Jr in New York in June 2019, in which AJ lost

I'm super proud to say I'm a complete product of Sky, says Sara Chenery, senior director and team lead at Sky Sports.

At 17 I was secretary to the head of business development and director of marketing for a year or so, before I offered to look after guests at an outside broadcast in my own time. As soon as I saw a gallery I knew I wanted to direct. I loved the energy and passion that live telly brings.

I absolutely love directing, she goes on. It's just a privilege. Being part of the process that brings a story to life on screen is second to none. I really enjoy being a team lead; we have a great team of talented people who work hard to support each other and deliver high-class output. It's always a good feeling when you know you have made someone's work life better, by taking the time to listen or to offer guidance.

Fast-forward from school to Sky

On how Chenery first got into broadcasting, she began just days after leaving school. I decided to take a year out off the back of my A Levels. My Dad was a chauffeur for Sky at the time. It was back in 1992 and Sky was a very different place to what it is now. They had two new executives who had no secretary. Dad knew I had done shorthand and typing and put my name forward fast-forward a few days and I had my last college exam on the Tuesday and started work on at Sky two days later.

I was petrified when I first came into Sky. One day I was taking my exams and a couple of days later I was answering the phone to household names and taking shorthand minutes in a high-powered meeting!

You absolutely have to thrive on chaos organised chaos of course! I still get butterflies when I hear the 10 second countdown to air; I don't ever want to lose that!

Chenery has always been focused and that has helped her push her career at Sky forwards over the years that she has been there. She explains her trajectory: I moved over as a production secretary (only girls did that role at the time!) and worked to upskill at every opportunity.

The next step was editorial assistant on Soccer Saturday (first covering for someone who was ill and then stepping into the roll permanently), coordinating the live football reports. Then I was promoted to assistant producer creating all features, short documentaries and promos. Soccer Saturday was a great show, because we always had a different live sport featuring, so we had experience of so many different sports - synchronised swimming, table football, beach volleyball, cricket, rugby, tennis we had so much variety!

Then while on a shoot I had the opportunity to link together a couple of cameras on-site with a vision mixing desk and that was my first introduction to directing, she goes on. I moved over to boxing as an associate producer in 1996, and whilst helping out on Naseem Hamed's fight in Dublin I realised how brilliant OBs were! I love multitasking and it was wonderful to see how everyone came together for that live broadcast. I was absolutely mesmerised.

Sky Sports' Sara Chenery says, In 2000 I started to direct undercard fights and then moved on to directing the live shows. Since then, no two shows have been the same and I absolutely love directing

Passion for directing boxing

Chenery moved onto VT directing by chance, when then assistant producer Adam Smith now head of boxing development was caught up backstage and could not get back to the trucks. This opened up a new world for her.

She says: VT directing replays was the best job I could have imagined; watching the fight from different angles and coordinating all the content was an absolute adrenaline rush. I continued to work on boxing as well as other sports to get more experience. Again, in my own time I had a go at a variety of crafts to understand how tricky they were: camera operating, floor managing, vision mixing and attempting to fade up the right microphones as the boxers moved around the ring!

Directing has remained Chenery's passion. In 2000 I started to direct undercard fights and then moved on to directing the live shows. Since then, no two shows have been the same and I absolutely love directing. I've worked on some challenging events and some emotional ones, but they have all been equally rewarding.

Chenery was almost where she wanted to be; she applied for the role of senior director in 2017 and was successful. She comments: I really enjoyed the new challenge of having direct reports as well as still directing myself. A year later the opportunity to become one of two team leads in the department came up and I was really pleased to get the role.

I've now directed most sports over the years at Sky and from OBs including athletics, ping pong, greyhound racing, badminton and netball, but boxing is always my favourite for the sheer unpredictability of it.

She has worked on so many boxing events that she has a lot of favourite moments: I've directed boxing OBs in Monaco, New York, Las Vegas, Saudi Arabia, Gibraltar and Germany and each of those events have had their own challenges and rewards.

There have been so many boxing moments; I've directed every AJ [Anthony Joshua] fight, with the exception of his loss in New York, and that makes me very proud. Froch versus Groves at Wembley was the most challenging; we had to rig overnight off the back of a football event. We'd done an overnight dry run, transforming the pitch, but it had never been done before and it was pretty nerve racking. George Groves insisting

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