About us
Our mission is to drive forward innovation in sport and health
We connect the UK's best sports and health tech startups with the clubs, brands and investors who need them, from a base in Cambridge, UK
Meet the team
Elliot Johnston
Founder & CEO
Elliot founded Leadout Innovation to connect sports startups with the clubs, brands and investors who need them. He played football professionally for Salford City before pivoting to triathlon, where he finished 21st in the world (AG) at the Ironman 70.3 World Championships. At Nike, he worked on the communications and marketing team, focused on how the brand reached and grew audiences across the UK market. He is completing a Masters in Entrepreneurship at Cambridge University, giving him a rare set of skills and perspectives across the sports industry.
Riele Short
Head of Partnerships & Strategy
Riele is a sports partnerships and strategy specialist who spent six years in the American market before coming to Cambridge University for her MBA. Her career spans strategy, partnerships and storytelling across major entertainment and media companies, with a focus on commercialising sport at the highest level, including NCAA basketball, the NFL, NBA and the Olympic Games. Most recently, she consulted for UNICEF UK on sports partnership strategy, identifying alignment opportunities across the UK sports market.
Alice Sharpe
Head of Events & Athlete-in-Residence
Alice is an experienced event manager and elite cyclist, bringing together expertise in event delivery with a career competing at the highest level of international sport. She represented Ireland at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, holds European and World Cup medals, and is a 2x Irish National Road Race Champion, now training toward LA 2028. Alice holds a degree in Sports Management and has delivered events from major sporting fixtures to bespoke corporate cycling events, covering the full lifecycle from bid development to on-the-ground delivery.
Our network's backgrounds span