Getty Images Senior Advisor Lee Martin Joins African Collaborations Group (ACG) Advisory Board to Advance Sport and Entertainment Districts Across Africa

African Collaborations Group (ACG) (www.ACGafrica.com), the leading strategic project origination and collaboration platform focused on the industrialisation of sport in Africa through the origination of bankable sport and entertainment district ecosystems, today announced the appointment of Lee Martin to its Advisory Board.

Mr Martin has worked as a Senior Advisor to the Executive Committee of Getty Images, one of the world’s leading visual content companies and the official visual content partner to more than 80 sport governing bodies, leagues and clubs, including the International Olympic Committee (IOC), FIFA, UEFA, the NBA, the NHL, and Manchester United, among many others.

With more than 30 years of experience in visual media and the sports sector, Mr Martin began his career at Allsport, the world's leading sports photo agency, rising to Joint Managing Director before joining Getty Images when the two companies merged in 1998. Over the course of his executive career at Getty Images, he served as Senior Vice President of Sales for Europe and Asia, and subsequently as Senior Vice President of Sport, in which capacity he was responsible for the global sport imagery business and the development of exclusive partnerships with governing bodies, leagues and rights holders around the world. Mr Martin served as a Senior Vice President on the Executive committee of Getty Images from 2003 to 2019.

He has served on a number of significant industry organisations, including the World Athletics Press Commission, the British Association of Picture Libraries & Agencies, and the Football Association, and as a judge for the International Olympic Committee Sport and Photography Contest, the Press Photographer's Year Awards and the Association of Photographers Awards, among others.

He is currently Chairman of Knockout Entertainment, which owns and runs a number of significant YouTube sports channels. He also sits on the advisory board of Ribu, Incyan, England Boxing Southern Counties, and Chairman of the Black Prince Trust.

His appointment to the ACG Advisory Board brings to the platform world-class expertise in the visual identity, imagery, storytelling and global distribution dimensions of sport and entertainment properties. Sport and entertainment districts at the scale ACG is originating must be built not only as physical and financial ecosystems but as visually iconic assets whose imagery travels globally, sustains the value of the property over the long term, and animates the sponsorship, media rights and brand partnership dimensions that underpin their commercial performance. Mr Martin's appointment ensures that this visual dimension is embedded into ACG's thinking from the earliest stages of project origination.

His appointment brings to the ACG Advisory Board deep relationships across the global sport governing bodies and rights holders, an authoritative perspective on the commercial and creative dimensions of sport imagery, and hands-on experience of building a global visual content business anchored on sport, capabilities directly relevant to originating and structuring large-scale sport and entertainment district projects across the African continent.

"Lee Martin brings to our Advisory Board a genuinely distinctive dimension: the visual and iconic identity of sport at global scale. Getty Images sits at the centre of how the world sees sport, and Lee's work has shaped that intersection for over two decades. Sport and entertainment districts are not only financial and physical assets, they are visual and cultural assets whose long-term value depends on how the world sees them. His presence on our Advisory Board ensures that ACG originates projects with this visual dimension built in from the outset," said Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard (www.Pompigne-Mognard.com), Founder and Executive Chairman of ACG.

The ACG Advisory Board provides strategic guidance as ACG originates and structures large-scale sport and entertainment district projects across the continent, aligning governments, development finance institutions (DFIs), investors, sport bodies and infrastructure partners to support the development of financially sustainable, mixed-use district ecosystems.

Africa's sport economy is projected to reach $20 billion by 2035, yet the continent continues to lack the integrated district ecosystems required to support large-scale development. ACG addresses this gap by originating bankable sport and entertainment district projects, moving beyond single-venue development models towards mixed-use, revenue-generating and financially sustainable district ecosystems.

Through its collaborative model, ACG convenes governments, PPP authorities and regulators, development finance institutions, private investors, developers, designers and engineers, legal and transaction advisors, operators, sport federations and leagues, event promoters, media and broadcast partners, academic institutions and host communities, creating structured pathways from concept to feasibility, bankability and delivery.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Collaborations Group (ACG).

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About African Collaborations Group (ACG):
African Collaborations Group (ACG) (www.ACGafrica.com) is the leading strategic project origination and collaboration platform focused on the industrialisation of sport in Africa through the origination of bankable sport and entertainment district ecosystems. By convening governments, private-sector partners, development finance institutions, sport and entertainment stakeholders, and academic institutions, ACG creates structured pathways that transform concepts into investable and deliverable district projects across the continent.