Mark Korda (13th President)

[pietillidie]

[David]

I should clarify that I wasn't using the term "corporate zombies" as a tautology – I don't dismiss all people from the corporate sector, just those who don't see a football club but merely an interchangeable exercise in maximising returns for shareholders, optimising public relations management and so on. We know we won't get another Eddie McGuire, for better or for worse, but having a longstanding passion for and devotion to the football club, an understanding of its history and a willingness to fight for its interests would be a great start, I reckon.

[Pies4shaw]

The qualification to be President is most certainly not "to have built and run a large commercial organisation" etc. That's got nothing at all to do with what the president of a football club actually does. Moreover - and, in any event, football clubs don't generally attract such people - they tend to attract people who aren't intellectually or commercially of the first rank.

[RudeBoy]

The President, more than anything else, needs to represent, advocate for and speak on behalf of the members and supporters. It's primarily a communications role imo. Therefore, the President should be one of us (but not Hiss). The CEO, on the other hand, must manage the club in a more traditional business like manner. The CEO doesn't even need to be a Collingwood supporter.

[pietillidie]

Del.

[pietillidie]

The presidency is not a communications role and neither is it an advocacy role. It's a leadership role that like all leadership roles assumes sophisticated communication skills, including an ability to advocate. But it assumes many other things including experience, intelligence, persuasiveness, sound judgement, adaptability, self-control, drive, energy, and so on.

Moreover, communication at the highest level is both honed and demonstrated through the successful leading of serious organisations in comparably competitive contexts. This most commonly (though not exclusively, of course) implies pressure business experience. This is why most — not all, but most — club presidents over the past couple of decades have had serious business careers.

Like anything, you will get outliers without the preferred experience, but only people close to those outliers will be able to detect the sort of untested giftedness that might lead you to back such a person contrary to good practice.

You're setting the bar too low. We want the very best leader we can find with a passion for the club. This is not an either/or choice, and barring special evidence it starts with a serious track record in a serious competitive environment that demonstrates the ability to make sound decisions under pressure, and to communicate those decisions to stakeholders and publics under pressure in an effective manner, as good leaders do.

Play the leadership percentages first and see who's around.

[SteveH67]

Christine Holgate would be perfect

Look at what she has done turning around Blackmores fortunes in the past, and now Australia Post.

The conservative Govt hung her out over the watches, because she made it hard for them to privatise Aust Post. The same Govt is happy to hand over bucket loads of money to prop up the donors and other party mates.

I know there are conservative voters on Nicks who dont like her, but its the best person for the job, not because of who they might support politically.

Eddie was ALP, Slobbo the Murdoch newspaper stooge, was constantly going after him.

[Big T]

[Pies4shaw]

PTID, there is more than a vestige of ancient (and backward) notions of puritan pre-destination in that.

Club presidents tend to be be people who have had business careers (of sorts) because people, as a whole, seem to quite enjoy perpetuating the myth that being able to make money for oneself or shareholders is evidence that one has necessary skills for doing other things in life. What it is is evidence that one is good at making money and getting the outcomes one wants for oneself. When you add to that the problem that genuinely good leaders tend not to turn up in these places because they are most definitely not the "glittering prizes" of capitalism, what one usually finds is that your footy club is more likely to be run by a third-tier (or lower) "successful" person than a competent, intelligent, thoughtful, diplomatic, goal-oriented "leader". You should be more wary of imbuing with magical powers people who are, by and large, just more focused on their own needs and greeds - or better at satiating themselves - than other people.

Personally, I don't want someone who wants to preside over the football club because they have the requisite drive and socio-pathology necessary to want to run our football club because they think doing so will be good for them. I want someone who has the requisite qualities of - amongst many other things - selflessness to build, develop and maintain something bigger than themselves for no particular benefit to them.

I am struggling to think of any club president who has had a "successful" business career and also been a good club president. I'm not proposing to waste particular time on this but, for the most part, the club presidents haven't been an especially capable, outstanding or memorable bunch. Some of them have been individually memorable (eg, say, Elliott) - but not because they were good for their clubs - they were, rather, memorable because the application of their purported business "talents" led to appalling results (however funny they might appear to us as opposition supporters from a distance) for their clubs.

Here's a list of people who have been presidents of their football clubs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_VFL/AFL_commissioners_and_club_presidents#Adelaide

Presumably, some of them have been good club presidents. For the most part, I don't recognize the names. The names I do know I know for reasons that have nothing to do with business prowess or their success at running a football club. Further - and in any event - what I also do know is that in my now rather lengthy professional life as a trusted advisor to many "captains of industry", none of the "captains of industry" are on that list - put simply, if they were, I'd recognize more of the names.

I'm not especially commenting adversely upon the people on the Collingwood Board. It may very well be that the best person for the job of President is already there and that they are a person with a business background. I'm not excluding them - but what I am saying is that if they are the best person for the job, the fact that they have a "successful" background in "business" will be entirely incidental and irrelevant to whether they have the requisite personal attributes to run Collingwood.

[doriswilgus]

[PyreneesPie]

Good thinking Doris re the positive benefits of a well credentialled, proficient, female
president!

[RudeBoy]

None of us outsiders know much about the in-house shenanigans, leaking and sabotaging, which seems to have taken place by one or more of our board members, leading up to the coup which toppled Eddie. Therefore, I can't ascertain with any confidence, who among them would make a good President.

To be honest, I think a batch of new board members is probably needed to shake up the joint.

[thesoretoothsayer]

Barrett suggesting powerful figures have approached Geoff Brown.
Brown, of course, is very close to Ed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef7LebYtt68

[GreekLunatic]

Is Jeff Browne Tom brownes dad Jeff Browne was ceo of 9

[K]

Re. Holgate & Brown talk on this page, I doubt anything has changed since the quoted article. (Brown ruled himself out, and it's not going to be Holgate if she's leading the search with Waite. Not even Eddie would lead a search and end up appointing himself. )