Kelly Cousins: Leading the charge at Utah Royals

Supporting people

Kelly is well used to having a broad range of responsibilities. With two decades at Reading on her CV as director of women’s and girls’ football, she took on an additional role as the first team’s head coach in 2014. She led her club to promotion to the Women’s Super League, including a fourth-place finish in 2017-18. Additionally, she has a degree in sports therapy.

 

“I’m somebody that likes supporting people,” she confirms. “I’m not someone that will sit in my office - if you need me, come and get me. I like building relationships. I love being around people.”

 

Indeed, that background meant Utah Royals were keen to appoint her after her departure from Reading in 2023.

 

“It was one of the reasons that I was told I was brought in - because of all the different roles I’d played at Reading over my time,” she says. 

But being sporting director at Utah Royals is very different to her time with the Berkshire Royals. She says she’s considering questions such as: “How do we keep growing? How do we think differently to do things that maybe other people are not thinking about or not doing where we can get a competitive advantage? And obviously the strategic side of things in terms of where we are now, where do we want to get to, and how do we lean into that vision and mission and how do we get there?”

 

The size of the challenge was appealing to Kelly as she considered the role – and prepared to move on from a club where she had shaped the entire women’s and girls’ structure for 20 years. There were problems with the way Reading was operating and funding its women’s and girls’ section, which made the decision easier.

 

Kelly is proud of her time at Reading and what she and her teams achieved, but sad about the painful way it ended, after relegation to the second tier and the club deciding to pare back its women’s team to a part-time operation.

 

“I still speak a lot about what we’ve done and what we achieved on little resources. It was ‘we’ll always find a way’ and I wanted to bring that mentality here: as much as we would have better resources, better funding, whatever that looked like, but we’re not a club that it will just throw money at everything. 

 

“I’m used to just thinking outside the box because I’ve had to.

 

“The other day we were speaking about how we beat Chelsea and with a squad, we had the bare 11 and we had kids on the bench and we were like, ‘we can’t make any changes’. 

 

“I’m so proud of what I built there… I’m glad people are still trying to run with it and trying to start again and do something for the town because there’s so much talent in that town that they need something to aspire to.

 

“I got to a stage at Reading [where it] was obviously not going in the direction I wanted it to go anymore, and that had been happening for a good few years. As much as I tried to fight and push buttons and everything else, I knew what was coming, and it was made very clear. 

 

“I look back now and go, ‘Maybe I stayed too long’ - because I built something, obviously it was home for me. 

 

“But it was very weird. I’m a big believer of everything happens for a reason. And I had made the decision that I was going to leave Reading, but didn’t know what I was going to do. Then this popped up on my radar.”

Resources and recruitment

One thing she’s had to get used to is having resources to draw upon – and not having to do everything herself.

 

“I haven’t got to sit there and print shirts and I haven’t got to worry about the scheduling and everything like that! It’s nice to have those resources and be able to bring those people on board to be a part of a journey and just bring people that belong here. 

 

“There’s a real sense of belonging here now. The resources are only growing.”

 

She also praises the club’s ownership: “I meet with them every week. They’re so accessible. They’re so happy for you to lean on them, whether it be around leadership, whether it be about what you need. The first question is, every time I see them – ‘Is there anything you need?’

 

“We have an ownership now - their legacy is building things.

 

“They want us to be successful, and I’ve never had that feeling before - and that’s really refreshing for me.”

 

And after a break, Kelly returned to the office at the start of January in preparation for the 2026 season. Her to-do list is full.

 

“There’s been a lot of staff recruitment. We’ve had people leave, but also we’ve added new positions. So that’s probably been the biggest, busiest thing for me over the last couple of months.

 

“Player recruitment - that’s a big, heavy piece, and then just being ready for when players walk through the door. What do we want to change? What do we want it to look like? How do we refresh things? But also how are we ready for them? How do we show the work that we’ve done over the off-season? ‘This is where we are now, this is where we want to get to, and this is how we believe it’s going to happen.’”

 

Getting the right people to fill roles is very important to Kelly.

 

“It’s a very inclusive culture, very collaborative culture. It’s definitely something that I’ve always tried to drive. How do we lean on each other? How do we support each other to be better? 

 

“We want to be fun. We want to be energetic. We want to be collaborative, inclusive. It’s having that sense of belonging. I feel like we’ve really built that in terms of the staff. 

 

“When we are interviewing staff, when we are interviewing players, the people piece is just as important as if they have skills. We’ll get there because we’ve got the right people that want to be a part of the journey instead of just bringing in someone that’s very highly skilled in their job, but [they] don’t want to be a part of our culture and our values - the mission of and the vision of where we want to get to.”

Future plans

She describes her time at Utah Royals thus far as a “two-year rollercoaster” but thinks the last six months have heralded a more settled period, with staffing and squad now in a better place.

 

“For us, [the target]’s getting into a place where we are we’re competing consistently, we’re winning consistently, and if we’re doing that, then we’ll be able to reach play-offs and we’ll be able to win championships. But how does everyone aid into that? So whether you’re an operations person, whether you’re performance, medical, how is everybody’s role and what everybody’s doing really leading into that?

 

“We spent a lot of time on building our game model and our identity on the pitch, and we spent a lot of time building what we want to look like off the pitch in terms of our environment. 

 

“Right now for 2026, [the aim is] just to continue building that, and I feel like that will bring our success on the pitch - that will lead into us winning more games and be more successful on the pitch.”

 

And Kelly’s own role will continue to be wide-ranging. Although she might not be on the grass every day as a head coach, she is still part of all the football conversations and supporting players, and she says she feels “in a really good space personally and professionally”. 

 

Personally, Kelly says that the thing that made her most apprehensive about moving to the US was uprooting her family to another country – while nine months pregnant. 

 

“Out of everything, that was the scariest piece,” she admits. “I had a seven-year-old and I actually accepted the role when I was nine months pregnant.  I had Halle in the July and then I moved over in the October!”

 

She goes on: “It’s crazy because even when I look back at my eldest now, that I had in 2016, obviously [Reading were] competing in the WSL at the time. I was like: ‘Middle of the season…I need to get back to work!’ So I went back after two weeks of having her because we were mid-season and wanting to stay in the league.

 

“Coming here was a big shock to the system. We just didn’t have family support. So we had to navigate that piece. But everyone here was truly amazing.”

 

And professionally, her new role includes doing some tasks that some might not have expected to see her do.

 

“Yesterday we were moving offices around and lugging tables and chairs,” she reveals, “and everyone was like, ‘I’ve never seen a sporting director doing this before!’ 

 

“I’m just here to help anybody - and get things done.”