Strategy CEO Thread - Jennifer Watt - Started Jan 2023

[Le Grille]

Look the “football person” term is a bit of a dud term but I do think similar to our coaching appointment the next ceo preferably has experience in a similar role at a club. I don’t see much wrong with that

 

[Hearts to hearts]

I feel like we’ve been getting smacked for having a CEO who didn’t have long, established relationships across the AFL. Externally that seems to mean more than the individual’s experience and skills in non-footy corporate life. And pretty much excludes women.

Being in a strong financial position helps a lot. Gives us the chance to go for someone who is good in the industry, good with people, and will be good with Viney and Clarkson and the Board, without the overwhelming stress of making ends meet that previous CEOs have had to deal with. They don’t have to be a North person, but it wouldn’t hurt if they were either. Brendon Gale CEO wasn’t Brendon Gale CEO until he was.

 

[Le Grille]

I feel like we’ve been getting smacked for having a CEO who didn’t have long, established relationships across the AFL. Externally that seems to mean more than the individual’s experience and skills in non-footy corporate life. And pretty much excludes women.

Being in a strong financial position helps a lot. Gives us the chance to go for someone who is good in the industry, good with people, and will be good with Viney and Clarkson and the Board, without the overwhelming stress of making ends meet that previous CEOs have had to deal with. They don’t have to be a North person, but it wouldn’t hurt if they were either. Brendon Gale CEO wasn’t Brendon Gale CEO until he was.

Ben did have some afl relationships didn’t he?

I do think he lacked experience in terms of operating in football specifics.

Gale did have footy exec experience didn’t he? Sure he may have been a promotion but I think the “football person “ argument is more along those lines.

I mean there are only 18 club CEO positions around so yeah experienced ceos would be few so I don’t mind a broad church approach to recruiting but I think a minimum requirement is an understanding and working experience within an afl club structure

 

[joegreen]

This is the type of background we should be looking for.

Someone who has industry experience. Was CCO at Essendon. But also running an elite sporting organisation. Was CEO at Swimming Australia and Hockey Australia.

Never played a game of footy and for me that is not even on the list of requirements. Only a bonus if they have.

We must have the business experience in sport management/administration and must have the industry knowledge.

We should not settle for less.

EDIT - If I have time I might do some searching myself. There is a lot of info on LinkedIn and Club websites. I'll come up with my own shortlist!

Official AFL Website of the Collingwood Football Club

The official AFL website of the Collingwood Football Club

www.collingwoodfc.com.au

Mark commenced as Chief Executive Officer of the Collingwood Football Club in March 2018. This being his third CEO role of an elite sporting organisation.

Mark has a passion for leading change and establishing cultures which underpin organisational success and the environment that is required to lead sustainable success both on and off-field and building teams of talented individuals who are aligned, engaged, performance driven and have an appetite for continuous improvement.

An Executive leader for over 20 years, Mark has a Masters of Business Management and outside of his professional sporting roles he has worked in Executive Marketing & Business Development roles. As part of an extended family that are lifelong Pies members and fans, Mark understands why our fans are so passionate about our great club, having a lifetime of watching matches above the players race at Vic Park and our home ground at the ‘G.

Prior to joining Collingwood, Mark was Chief Executive Officer of Swimming Australia 2013 to 2018, finishing second on the Olympic medal tally and its swimmers being acknowledged as great ambassadors for the sport and our Nation following a period of cultural change.

Previously Mark was the CEO at Hockey Australia responsible for two of Australia’s most successful national teams, the Kookaburras and Hockeyroos. The Kookaburras were ranked the best team in the world and a world first, ‘International Super Series, Hockey 9’s’ tournament was created, attracting record sponsorship and broadcast from India and Australia.

Mark returns to AFL having previously being the Chief Commercial Officer at Essendon Football Club. During this time record sponsorship, membership and merchandise levels were achieved, and marquee events such as the Dreamtime at the ‘G were established.

 

[Hearts to hearts]

Ben did have some afl relationships didn’t he?

I do think he lacked experience in terms of operating in football specifics.

Gale did have footy exec experience didn’t he? Sure he may have been a promotion but I think the “football person “ argument is more along those lines.

I mean there are only 18 club CEO positions around so yeah experienced ceos would be few so I don’t mind a broad church approach to recruiting but I think a minimum requirement is an understanding and working experience within an afl club structure

His previous experience was in the players association. Can’t recall that he’d proven himself in corporate life either inside or outside the industry. He brought a lot on the relationships/footy experience side - my point is, if you don’t need to worry all the time about making money, that kind of appointment can turn out pretty well.

 

[Tas]

I would prefer we avoid Bell, there is a bit of Nepotism when it comes to us chasing "North people". If a North person was the best candidate than fine, but I think we can become to insular at times.

If I was on the team charged with looking for a CEO, I'd be asking where they see the club at present, where they see it in 5, 10 and 50 years and what needs to be done to get there and how they would approach putting us on that pathway.

When you look at any successful sporting club, everything revolves around the stadium and your home games. We have a stadium that holds 50k people, we get 75% of the premium seating and corporate box revenue counted towards the gate now so other than being strong on-field, you need someone that realises the goal for our club is to get 50k people into Docklands for the worst drawing games (Fremantle/Port/GC/GWS) in the worst timeslot (Sunday).

The inherent flaw of Docklands is the extent of the stadium which is devoted to non-club seating, such as Medallion Club, Axcess One or whatever they call it now and there is even some 2000 seats for MCC members. A big chunk of these seats are commercial seating, that is various corporations buy exclusive access to the seats but the majority remain empty outside of bigger clashes in better timeslots. With the new stadium agreement we do get part of that revenue for the seat so it is better than nothing, but an empty seat doesn't generate any other revenue that is generated by people who go to the game, be it alcohol or food, etc.

We need the critical mass of supporters, we don't have it now and on-field success will inflate wherever you are at the present but we have grown our supporter/membership base whilst being dogshit on-field so you can still grow the supporter base. I remember when Euge first started, we returned the games home and he built that relationship with Ballarat to play some games there, but build that supporter base here. At that time we got help from the AFL, they said back in 2008 that increasing our supporter base was critical to our survival and they came up with developing the Wyndham area and set aside part of the future fund payments to us for that grassroots development and supporter-base growth.

This to me was the first pro-active step our club has ever done in my lifetime to grow the supporter base of the club and even in a short span of time it has already become our most important source of supporter base growth for the club. it takes time, it takes resources, but you can see the results.

My main criticism of Dilena as CEO and recently Ben, is that nobody has had the foresight to say, oh, where are all these members coming from, oh, Wyndham... it is the fastest growing region in Victoria. There are other fast growing regions in Victoria also in close proximity. If you look at the decades of Victorian government planning, Melbourne's population is expected to double in size. Where are all these people coming from? Where are all these people going to live? A lot will be in Wyndham but a lot will also be in Hume and other neighbouring regions.

Euge was a good CEO because what he did was a foundation builder, he had a vision of where we wanted to be and put us on that path. Yes, Arden precinct change is going to be good for us, but there is only going to be a droplet of people live there.

I think someone who you want to leading our club is going to be someone who says, Wyndham is our success story of the last few decades, we are going to take that and what we did with the Huddle and we are going to take that to Hume, Melton, Whittlesea and Brimbank and we are going to grow with Melbourne and it is going to generate that 100k membership base, 200k membership base in the future. Huddle has been praised for the quality of that program. How do we generate the corporate and government support for that program, how do we improve that program to take it to the next level.

In Ben's time we sold more games to Tasmania and didn't read the tea leaves that they wanted their own team and it is a market that is going to completely vanish in the near future.

We don't need another Dilena-like CEO, we need someone who can identity where we need to go and how we are going to do it.

 

[Le Grille]

His previous experience was in the players association. Can’t recall that he’d proven himself in corporate life either inside or outside the industry. He brought a lot on the relationships/footy experience side - my point is, if you don’t need to worry all the time about making money, that kind of appointment can turn out pretty well.

I wasn’t arguing that point, I just knew he had some contacts just wasn’t sure to what extent.

I agree that an effective appointment can come from anywhere provided there’s a good structure around. I just think for what we need now is a person who has experienced at club level particularly as the entire club structure is in flux

 

[Mr Lloyd Christmas]

I've applied for the position.

I believe I have it in the bag to be honest, but not appropriate to announce just yet.

 

[TennisPlayerAndy]

Someone (player, coach, etc) who's been on the "inside" and knows how a club is run day to day, but obviously has adequate commercial acumen as well.

This.

 

[Mixed Results]

When we signed Clarkson, I thought about making a post about how either Clarko or Bell would be the biggest off-field signing that a club could make. What Bell has done at Fremantle is nothing short of sensational and he has them perfectly set up to contend for many years to come.

To bring both Bell and Clarkson in would be a massive win for the club.

That said. We'd have to see what the responsibilities of a CEO are under this new regime and whether they allow Bell to succeed at doing what he does best. Under Walsh's recommendations, I'd imagine Clarkson would report to Viney, while Rawlings and Viney would report to Bell. Now, whether that means Bell will be hands-on as a manager, or whether he'll be happy to delegate and focus on the commercial side is yet to be seen. At the very least, I doubt he'd ever let the football department degrade to the extent that it did under Amarfio.

We've had a lot of failures recently appointing people into roles that they weren't ready for and there is a chance that Bell's name is added to that miserable list. However, there's a lot to like about bringing in Peter Bell and given what he has done at Fremantle it's hard not to be excited.

 

[Zebrah]

Fwiw:

Hard to find any details on Bell’s business career apart from it involving hospitality businesses.

So he may be a combination or Euge and Rick Aylett!

 

[giantroo]

Bell ticks all the boxes to replace Nisbett at West Coast

Fremantle’s rise in 2022 has made a number of players and coaches a hot commodity and football boss Peter Bell could be the most in-demand, with jobs from West Coast chief executive to boss of the AFL in reach.

thewest.com.au

krakouers if you don't mind

 

[giantroo]

Peter Bell

Peter Bell was the former club captain of Fremantle Dockers, three-time Doig Medallist and Life Member.

www.businessnews.com.au

Peter Bell - Executive General Manager Football - Fremantle Dockers | LinkedIn

View Peter Bell’s profile on LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional community. Peter has 1 job listed on their profile. See the complete profile on LinkedIn and discover Peter’s connections and jobs at similar companies.

au.linkedin.com

I noticed he does a lot of keynote speeches/MC

Peter Bell - Book for guest speaking, marketing and more

Book Peter Bell for guest speaking, marketing campaigns, brand ambassadorships and more. Thousands of stars, free to request.

pickstar.pro

BIOGRAPHY
Kode Entertainment Group. Cheeky Sparrow Small Bar. Fremantle Foundation. Passionate about philanthropy, family and leadership. Interests include hospitality, music, sport particularly horse racing and travel.


EXPERIENCE
Bachelor Of Laws Melbourne University, AFLPA President, AFLPA Executive, Broadcaster 6PR 882, Channel 7, 96FM, 92.9FM, The West Australian Newspaper. Hospitality and Property Interests . Broad experience with Keynote speaking, master of ceremonies etc.

Peter Bell - Cheri Gardiner

cherigardiner.com.au

Peter Bell

www.greatexpectation.com.au

Peter Bell

Looking to book Peter Bell at your next corporate event? Enquire now about Peter Bell's fees and availability with Keynote Entertainment.

www.keynoteentertainment.com.au

Peter Bell - Hire Keynote and Guest Speaker - ICMI

Peter Bell is the General Manager of Football Operations at the Fremantle Dockers. He is a former AFL footballer who during his career played for Fremantle Dock...

www.icmi.com.au

Peter Bell - Aquinas College

Class of 1993 Son of a Korean mother and an American father, Peter was adopted at the age of three by an Australian couple who were working in South Kore…

www.aquinas.wa.edu.au

 

[Orange Peanut]

If I was on the team charged with looking for a CEO, I'd be asking where they see the club at present, where they see it in 5, 10 and 50 years and what needs to be done to get there and how they would approach putting us on that pathway.

I'd ask them when was a time they felt challenged, and how did they resolve it.

 

[The acurate one]

Hard to find any details on Bell’s business career apart from it involving hospitality businesses.

So he may be a combination or Euge and Rick Aylett!

He's a lawyer and he is our number 1 target, we're mad for him.

 

[roos 10]

Good

 

[Massive Unit]

From my perspective, the club has suffered from a lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities, which these structural changes are seeking to address.

Installing Todd Viney as GM of Football means that he carries the can for all things football related, including onfield, list management and recruiting.
Todd reports through to the CEO alongside the other GMs (Finance, People, Comms, Marketing, etc).

To this extent, I do not believe that it is essential for the CEO to have been a past player or even necessarily have been involved in football. They just need to have agreed measurables in place with all GMs that are regularly reviewed and scrutinised.

My view is that the CEO needs to have a clear and succinct vision that is easily communicable to all staff and members. Something like "Five in Five" (5th premiership, $5 million in cash reserves and 59000 members all within 5 years). It's simple, sets expectations and provides targets for the club to build strategies around.

 

[King Corey]

From my perspective, the club has suffered from a lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities, which these structural changes are seeking to address.

Installing Todd Viney as GM of Football means that he carries the can for all things football related, including onfield, list management and recruiting.
Todd reports through to the CEO alongside the other GMs (Finance, People, Comms, Marketing, etc).

To this extent, I do not believe that it is essential for the CEO to have been a past player or even necessarily have been involved in football. They just need to have agreed measurables in place with all GMs that are regularly reviewed and scrutinised.

My view is that the CEO needs to have a clear and succinct vision that is easily communicable to all staff and members. Something like "Five in Five" (5th premiership, $5 million in cash reserves and 59000 members all within 5 years). It's simple, sets expectations and provides targets for the club to build strategies around.

Based on that Amarfio was a good option because Viney would've absorbed more of the football oversight?

 

[Massive Unit]

Based on that Amarfio was a good option because Viney would've absorbed more of the football oversight?

I've said all along that Amarfio had put the club into a strong commercial position (leveraging the good work from his predecessors), but it was really the GM of Football role that was the missing piece. I've also said that I don't believe that Amarfio does public speaking especially well, which I feel created a lack of confidence in some quarters.

 

[Orange Peanut]

From my perspective, the club has suffered from a lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities, which these structural changes are seeking to address.

Installing Todd Viney as GM of Football means that he carries the can for all things football related, including onfield, list management and recruiting.
Todd reports through to the CEO alongside the other GMs (Finance, People, Comms, Marketing, etc).

To this extent, I do not believe that it is essential for the CEO to have been a past player or even necessarily have been involved in football. They just need to have agreed measurables in place with all GMs that are regularly reviewed and scrutinised.

My view is that the CEO needs to have a clear and succinct vision that is easily communicable to all staff and members. Something like "Five in Five" (5th premiership, $5 million in cash reserves and 59000 members all within 5 years). It's simple, sets expectations and provides targets for the club to build strategies around.

 

[Mr Lloyd Christmas]

From my perspective, the club has suffered from a lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities, which these structural changes are seeking to address.

That is where I come in (so to speak)

I'll steer the ship back Massive U don't you worry about that.

 

[Massive Unit]

That is where I come in (so to speak)

I'll steer the ship back Massive U don't you worry about that.

Aye aye Captain!

 

[Mr Lloyd Christmas]

Aye aye Captain!

As the most responsible poster on here, and highly qualified, I believe the CEO role is simply mine to lose.

 

[King Corey]

I've said all along that Amarfio had put the club into a strong commercial position (leveraging the good work from his predecessors), but it was really the GM of Football role that was the missing piece. I've also said that I don't believe that Amarfio does public speaking especially well, which I feel created a lack of confidence in some quarters.

This is why I'm confused about the Amarfio piece - there aren't any validated concerns about him apart from observed football results.

The fiscal position isn't some finished piece, where we sit back and go "that's great we're in the black - job done". I'd have a thought continuing that level of commercial success is essential to be able to wear wooden spoon years and/or any poor on-field results.

So the remit for a new CEO to be the mysterious "Certified Football Person" seems less important especially with the incoming personnel. While noting the public speaking query you mention.

I can only guess Walsh/Hood have picked up something untenable about Amarfio that they are keeping professionally in-house. Not necessarily incriminating, but untenable in some manner - look not applying proper governance somewhere in the organisation.

 

[shintemaster]

I would prefer we avoid Bell, there is a bit of Nepotism when it comes to us chasing "North people". If a North person was the best candidate than fine, but I think we can become to insular at times.

If I was on the team charged with looking for a CEO, I'd be asking where they see the club at present, where they see it in 5, 10 and 50 years and what needs to be done to get there and how they would approach putting us on that pathway.

When you look at any successful sporting club, everything revolves around the stadium and your home games. We have a stadium that holds 50k people, we get 75% of the premium seating and corporate box revenue counted towards the gate now so other than being strong on-field, you need someone that realises the goal for our club is to get 50k people into Docklands for the worst drawing games (Fremantle/Port/GC/GWS) in the worst timeslot (Sunday).

The inherent flaw of Docklands is the extent of the stadium which is devoted to non-club seating, such as Medallion Club, Axcess One or whatever they call it now and there is even some 2000 seats for MCC members. A big chunk of these seats are commercial seating, that is various corporations buy exclusive access to the seats but the majority remain empty outside of bigger clashes in better timeslots. With the new stadium agreement we do get part of that revenue for the seat so it is better than nothing, but an empty seat doesn't generate any other revenue that is generated by people who go to the game, be it alcohol or food, etc.

We need the critical mass of supporters, we don't have it now and on-field success will inflate wherever you are at the present but we have grown our supporter/membership base whilst being dogshit on-field so you can still grow the supporter base. I remember when Euge first started, we returned the games home and he built that relationship with Ballarat to play some games there, but build that supporter base here. At that time we got help from the AFL, they said back in 2008 that increasing our supporter base was critical to our survival and they came up with developing the Wyndham area and set aside part of the future fund payments to us for that grassroots development and supporter-base growth.

This to me was the first pro-active step our club has ever done in my lifetime to grow the supporter base of the club and even in a short span of time it has already become our most important source of supporter base growth for the club. it takes time, it takes resources, but you can see the results.

My main criticism of Dilena as CEO and recently Ben, is that nobody has had the foresight to say, oh, where are all these members coming from, oh, Wyndham... it is the fastest growing region in Victoria. There are other fast growing regions in Victoria also in close proximity. If you look at the decades of Victorian government planning, Melbourne's population is expected to double in size. Where are all these people coming from? Where are all these people going to live? A lot will be in Wyndham but a lot will also be in Hume and other neighbouring regions.

Euge was a good CEO because what he did was a foundation builder, he had a vision of where we wanted to be and put us on that path. Yes, Arden precinct change is going to be good for us, but there is only going to be a droplet of people live there.

I think someone who you want to leading our club is going to be someone who says, Wyndham is our success story of the last few decades, we are going to take that and what we did with the Huddle and we are going to take that to Hume, Melton, Whittlesea and Brimbank and we are going to grow with Melbourne and it is going to generate that 100k membership base, 200k membership base in the future. Huddle has been praised for the quality of that program. How do we generate the corporate and government support for that program, how do we improve that program to take it to the next level.

In Ben's time we sold more games to Tasmania and didn't read the tea leaves that they wanted their own team and it is a market that is going to completely vanish in the near future.

We don't need another Dilena-like CEO, we need someone who can identity where we need to go and how we are going to do it.

Good post. I agree with almost every word of it. I will say that the Arden station (and therefore catchment through towards Sunshine and beyond) should be a target area as well as Wyndham.