Tom Sears appointed Kenya's new CEO

Tom Sears, the former chief executive of Derbyshire, has been appointed as the new chief executive of Cricket Kenya. He moves into a position which became vacant in December when Tom Tikolo was forced to resign after mismanaging board funds.

Sears, 40, who has been head of business development at New Zealand Cricket since 2008, was commercial director at Worcestershire between 2000 and 2005 and then spent three years as CEO with Derbyshire. He was widely credited with turning round Derbyshire's finances. When he took over they were making losses, but a restructuring programme had led to them reporting profits in his last two years.

Before that he was involved in rugby administration and also spent time as a journalist.

His first job will be to accompany Samir Inamdar, the board's chairman, to the ICC annual conference in Singapore in late June.

Cricket Kenya received more than 70 applications for the post.