Courtesy: Swimming Australia
Swimming Australia has today announced the appointment of highly experienced sports administrator Eugenie Buckley as Swimming Australia interim Chief Executive Officer (CEO) effective immediately, following the resignation of Alex Baumann earlier this month due to health reasons.
Buckley, the managing director of Suiko Consulting, has held roles as CEO of the Brisbane Roar and the ICC Women’s World Cup in 2009 and has a multitude of experience across high performance sporting organisations, both in Australia and overseas – working across commercial, strategic planning, operations, integrity and risk, and people and culture.
Swimming Australia President Kieren Perkins OAM said Buckley was a strong candidate to lead the organisation during this transition period.
“Eugenie has strong commercial experience and has developed and implemented strategies across a wide range of sports, making her an ideal person to lead the organisation for the next few months,” he said.
“She will work closely with Alex in his final week to take over the implementation of our current strategy, which has been developed by Alex and our executive team, in conjunction with our member organisations.”
Buckley said this was an exciting opportunity to work with a sport at the heart of all Australians.
“I am excited about the opportunity to maintain the momentum created by Swimming Australia and its athletes post-Tokyo, with a strong culture and performance pathway that will build on participation and optimise brand partnership interest,” she said.
“I cannot wait to throw myself into a range of projects, as guided by the Board and I am very much looking forward to working with the Swimming Australia executive team in realising a raft of new opportunities.”
The Board of Swimming Australia has appointed global executive search and talent consulting firm SRI to lead a domestic and global search for the next CEO.
Perkins said SRI had been tasked with undertaking a comprehensive global search for a permanent replacement.
“Swimming Australia, as a sport of national significance, enters this recruitment process at an important time of inflection for the sport following a highly successful Tokyo Olympic campaign, and a Paralympic team performing extremely well as they reach the halfway point in their competition,” he said.
“We have the Birmingham Commonwealth Games next year, leading into a shorter preparation for Paris 2024 and now we have the excitement of a generationally important Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games ahead of us.
“The next CEO for Swimming Australia will need to ensure our sport is commercially strong, continues to deliver successful high performance results, with best practice governance and risk management to deliver a sustainable future for swimming.”
Buckley’s appointment is initially for three months with a period to review should the recruitment process for a permanent appointment still be ongoing after that period.
The search for a permanent CEO will commence this week with the Board aiming to be shortlisting for the role in October. The CEO advertisement will be live from Wednesday September 1st and close Wednesday September 29th.