Tackling the top job

KATE ROFFEY TACKLES A

TOUGH JOB HEAD ON

By day Kate Roffey works at Wyndham City Council, but it was when she was elected President of the Melbourne Football Club that her part time role made news headlines. Here she tells us her story.

Local Government wasn’t a sector I ever really considered working in, but when I first was approached by our former CEO Kelly Grigsby to come to Wyndham, I realised that there was a big opportunity to make a significant impact on the future of a local community, so long as you have the right attitude toward visionary change – and are willing to push the traditional boundaries.

I always want to push the envelope – I have never been someone who was really interested in just kicking a can down the road; so I choose to work in areas where people with my sort of working background may not usually go, but where they are probably most needed, to help bring about change. Encouraging change and doing things that will make a longterm difference for our community have by far and away been the most rewarding aspects of working in Local Government for me.

I have only been at Wyndham (as Director – Deals, Investment and Major Projects) for about 4.5 years. I was the CEO of the Committee for Melbourne and before that I completed the negotiations and masterplan for the $1 billion redevelopment of Melbourne Park for Tennis Australia, so my work history in the sector has been very brief.

I grew up on a farm in the country, so I was riding horses by the time I was seven and motorbikes by nine. As a country kid, you are always outside running around and being active; and in the country every kid pretty much plays Saturday morning sport of some sort.

I think growing up outside gave me a really good fitness base – in my school years I was an 800m and cross country runner; and being blessed with pretty good athletic abilities, I probably spent more of my time at school away on sporting trips than in the classroom. Playing and watching sport and understanding how the mind and body worked always fascinated me, so it is no surprise that I went off to university and studied sports science and psychology. I always believe you turn up in the right place at the right time for whatever reason, so really for me taking the role at Wyndham was about going with my gut instinct. When Kelly asked me to come and work in the west there were a number of other opportunities I was considering, and while my mind kept saying pick one of the others – my gut instinct kept telling me there is a reason to go to Wyndham. One new A-League team and stadium later – I guess I now know the reason I was supposed to be here.

Being a part of the A-League project from the day dot is right up there. To start with a dream to win one of two new A-League team licences and to build our own football stadium using a value-capture funding model is totally unique in Australia. To see our very own team of the West take to the field and play in the A-League and to continue to tick off the long list of things we need to do to start building our stadium and training facility is almost still totally unbelievable.

Of course, being critically involved in securing a $1 billion deal to redevelop the tennis centre and going to Wimbledon, the French and US Opens and spending time with leading international sports clubs like the New York Yankees, the Mets, the Dallas Cowboys, the Houston Astro’s, Manchester United and Barcelona FC amongst others wasn’t too bad either.

Cheekily, I would have to say the most enjoyable thing about my Council role is most definitely annoying everyone else by starting every conversation with ‘DO NOT tell me no!’ Too often we just say it can’t be done because it hasn’t been done before, or it seems too hard. There is so much that can be done of huge importance at the Local Government level – but you have to make an effort to push that boundary.

There is a huge area of opportunity in the space between what we can’t do because it is not allowed under legislative and legal requirements, and what we usually do – because that’s what has always been done. I get the greatest satisfaction in my work life from taking on a challenge no-one believes is possible – and doggedly pursuing it to make it happen and I have certainly been doing that at Wyndham.

Being President of Melbourne Football Club wasn’t so much a case of wanting to lead the club, as being asked to lead. These aren’t roles that you wake up one day and choose to do they are roles that others have to ask you to do or choose you for. Again, it is so much about being the right person at the right time in the right place.

As a Board we sat down and had a very open and honest conversation about who we felt was the best person at this time to lead the club. I am hugely honoured to be the person that my colleagues felt was the best person to lead at this time, and I am incredibly respectful of the fact that the Board and the Club have placed their faith and belief in me to be their President.

For me it is as much about being a woman as it is about being a President. I am the first female President of the oldest professional sporting club in the world and that is something unusual. It is really important for me to do as much as I can to encourage everyone else to be the best they can be. It shouldn’t matter if you are a female; in fact, it shouldn’t matter what your ethnic background is, where you went to school, how much money you have in the bank – but unfortunately to some it does. So, I will chip away at the glass ceiling where I can and hope that others come along and chip away with me – and if I can encourage another person, and another, and another to chip away at the barriers that prevent diversity, equity and inclusion, then it is all worthwhile.

To me this is about reflecting contemporary society. We have men and women in the workplace, we have men and women who stay at home to look after the family, we have men and women playing sport – so why would we not have men and women on boards? There are growing numbers of women being represented – but we need to do a lot better.

And I will note that this is not a gender war – men vs women. My male colleagues around the board table are some of my best supporters and are absolute advocates for more female representation amongst other diversity aims – but that sadly isn’t the case with everyone. We subconsciously learn a lot from good role models, so the women in these roles have an important job to do to encourage and support others. No doubt there are still many more times we will have to fight and bang the door down – I don’t know any female in a leadership role who hasn’t had to do the ‘misogyny speech’ at some stage in their career – but hopefully the need for that will continue to diminish over time until, one day, equal representation on boards, or in any other forum, is not unusual anymore.

It took a long time to learn that my definition of ‘up’ or ‘progression’ is not the same as anyone else’s. I have been a CEO, I am a Chair of Boards, I’m now a President of an AFL club – so what’s next?

Who knows? I certainly haven’t finished my work – there are plenty more things I want to do and I will always be a work in progress.

I will just have to wait for that sign that shows me an open door and my gut instinct says don’t think about it – just walk through it; to see what happens next...