Product launches on and off the field - A night with the decision makers of sport

Francis Soyer

Tournaments Development Manager

Tennis Australia

Francis Soyer is the Tournaments Development Manager at Tennis Australia, an alumni of Melbourne Business School (MBA 2015) and co-founder of the MBS Alumni Sports Chapter.

With a career that runs deep in Event Management within the tennis industry he has been a member of the Australian Open team for numerous years. Francis leads and directs many of Tennis Australia's major tournaments throughout the year, developing Australia's and the world's future tennis stars.

With his background, qualifications and experience Francis contributes to the creation of a Grand Slam champion for Australian tennis.

Aaron Yeak

Director & Owner

F45 Training Belmont

Aaron Yeak is the Director and Owner of F45 Training Belmont, an alumni of Melbourne Business School (MBA 2016) and co-founder of the MBS Alumni Sports chapter.

His career has spanned sport, recreation and fitness including as the Regional Manager (WA/SA/NT) for the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport and Operations and Logistics Manager for both the Australian and Korean Formula 1 Grand Prix. As part of his role for the Korean Formula 1 Grand Prix and against a backdrop of a racetrack that almost didn’t reach completion, Aaron helped successfully launch the inaugural event in 2010 coordinating a team of over 100 Australian volunteers who trained the 500 + local Korean volunteers.

Aaron is currently riding the ups and downs of opening his F45 Training studio, due for launch later this year.

Geoff Lord

CEO

Belgravia Group

Geoff Lord is the Chief Executive of venture capital business the Belgravia Group, Melbourne Business School alumnus, and MBS Board Director. He established Belgravia Group in 1990 and is responsible for over $100 million of assets under management and more than 6000 employees. While the Belgravia Group has interests in a wide range of business sectors, Geoff has always had an interest in a wide range of leisure businesses.

Belgravia Group subsidiaries include Belgravia Fitness Equipment (The Fitness Generation); the Belgravia Health and Leisure Group, which includes Belgravia Leisure, Genesis Health Clubs and Belgravia Sports; as well as financial services, technology and corporate clothing businesses.

Geoff was also the inaugural Chairman of Melbourne Victory and is best known for having been a Director of the Hawthorn Football Club for 10 years, Chair for three, and now life member of the Club.

Dr. Scott Watkins

Chair of the Board

Parkrun Australia

Dr Scott Watkins is Chair of the Board of Parkrun Australia, and social enterprise Pollinate Energy. He is also the Chief Marketing Officer for KISCO, a Korean chemical manufacturer. Scott’s background is in chemistry research and particularly flexible solar cells. He managed research in this area with CSIRO for 10 years before joining KISCO. Pollinate Energy is an Australian social enterprise that provides technologies such as solar-powered lights to the urban poor in India.

Scott is applying his governance expertise to Parkrun, a not-for-profit organisation that facilitates free, timed 5km runs or walks in over 1000 parks around the world every weekend. With over 3.5 million participants, Parkrun is the world’s largest running organisation. In Australia there are over 210 community-based events and over 400,000 registered participants. Parkrun Australia is managed by a small team of staff and Scott’s role, as Chair of the Board, is to help oversee the strategic growth of the organisation.

Josh Vanderloo

Head of Female Football & Junior Development

AFL

Josh Vanderloo is the Head of Female Football & Junior Development at the Australian Football League (AFL). He has close to 15 years of industry experience having managed State and National Auskick portfolios before eventually taking on the broader management of National Participation growth strategies in 2010.

Over the last two years he has focused on fast tracking a female football talent pathway and worked across the entire business to develop a competition structure, license AFL Clubs, draft players, create a brand position and build a new audience in preparation for the establishment of the new AFL Women’s League, which launched successfully in February 2017.

Madeline Penny

Strategy Lead

AFL

Madeline Penny is a Strategy Lead at the Australian Football League (AFL). Since joining the AFL two years ago, she has worked on developing the strategy for the AFL Women’s League as well as supporting other projects including the negotiation of the player’s Collective Bargaining Agreement and the development of the AFL CSR strategy.

Prior to joining the AFL, she was at the Boston Consulting Group for six years where she worked across projects in the private, public and social sectors with a focus on strategy development and organisational transformations.