Sports governance

Presentation

no longer available

Date: 12:00pm — 2:00pm, 23 September 2020
Venue: Princes Gate Hotel
Location: 1057 Arawa Street, Rotorua 3010
Price members: $35.00 incl GST
Price non-members: $50.00 incl GST

Overview

While governance is not the most exciting part in the world of sport, it is incredibly important for a club, federation or sports organisation to get it right.

National sport federations, organisations and clubs can be hit or miss when it comes to excelling at governance. This can impact the reputation of the organisation or industry.

Join us to hear from our experienced panellists on the tries, the blows and the aces in their sports governance careers to date.

Julie Paterson

Julie is an experienced sport administrator with over 14 years in CEO roles ranging from regional sporting organisations, professional sport franchise management (Southern Sting/Steel and Northern Mystics) to more recently CEO of Tennis New Zealand.

Netball played a special part in Julie’s career development, which fuelled her commitment to creating better opportunities for women and girls in sport. She is continuing this commitment in her current role, this year Tennis NZ held their first women in coaching hui, developed a female coaching strategy, as well as showed a commitment to growing women in leadership roles. Julie was recently appointed to the gender equality sub-committee for the International Tennis Federation.

Julie is also one of the founders and current co-chair of Women in Sport Aotearoa (WISPA), launched in March 2017. WISPA was established with the support of over 20 foundation members who all recognised a need for women’s sport to have better visibility, value and recognition in New Zealand.

Julie’s interest in sport administration is driven not only by a love of sport, but also a strong interest in understanding and extending the community benefit of using sport as a vehicle to drive positive change. Julie believes the power sport has to influence gender equity as well as positively impacting the social, economic, and cultural future of our country.

Graham Cooney

Graham has over 30 years’ experience within governance. His sports governance began in 1998 on the Rugby Southland board, of which he was chair from 2007 – 2009. This overlapped with his time on the Highlanders franchise board (1999 - 2006) and he also represented New Zealand Rugby (NZR) on the Crusaders board following the Christchurch earthquake.

Graham was on the NZR board from 2010 to 2016, where he was chair of the rugby committee for three years and on the Audit and Finance committee for five years.

Beginning as a founding director of Blue Sky Meats (NZ) Ltd. Graham was chair from 2007 to 2016 when he retired from the board. He was on the Council of Southern Institute of Technology for 11 years and the chair from 2002 to 2011.

Other director roles include Tennis Southern, Bond Contracts, Computer Group NZ and independent chair for the law firm Preston Russell Limited. Graham’s current governance role is a ministerial appointee to the NZ Racing Board. He is chair of the Dates Committee, the Net Proceeds Committee and CRIG (Combined Racing Industry Group) and on audit and risk.

He is a fellow of Institute of Directors NZ, NZIM, and NZ Institute of Primary Industry Management (NZIPIM). Graham was National President of NZIPIM in 1987 and 1988.

Sam Fellows

Sam is passionate about sport and physical activity and the benefits for social change and community building it provides.

A lawyer by profession and litigator by specialisation, Sam has seen first-hand the impact that governance has in both professional and community sports. Sam has advised and represented national sporting organisations, regional sporting organisations, clubs and athletes in governance issues, anti-doping proceedings, appeals regarding non-selection for Olympic and Commonwealth Games as well as in employment and health and safety.

He also holds a Master of Sport and Leisure studies and teaches a fourth year Sports Law paper at the University of Waikato and sits on a number of regional and community sports organisations.

Sam was runner up for the Emerging Director Award 2019, and currently sits on the Avalon Aotearoa Charitable Trust Board and the Institute of Directors Bay of Plenty branch committee.

Additional information

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