Tell us about your journey into the role of Streamer Operations Manager at Seven West Media?

I started my career with a cadetship at the Kalgoorlie Miner and spent an incredible 18 months there covering crime, courts, sport and countless other things that get thrown your way on a regional daily paper. While I was there I helped lead the digital transition – it was that long ago that I created the Miner’s Facebook page – and on the back of that I was asked to come to The West Australian and join its online team. 

After a few years there focusing on sport, a coveted position in the football reporting team opened up and I jumped at the opportunity. In that role, I covered four AFL grand finals, Ashes Test matches and generally just lived the dream. 

As The West began a new digital strategy, I was asked to take the role of Digital Sports Editor, leading a team covering news 24/7, introducing new content types, helping upskill the reporting team and creating podcasts like The Hard Ball Gets AFL Show and Duff and Quarters. From there I moved out of sport for the first time in years to become Editor of PerthNow for a very entertaining 12 months, before our Editor-in-Chief, Anthony De Ceglie, asked me to dive back in as Sports Editor – leading the team creating content across The West, The Sunday Times and all our digital assets. 

Almost immediately, all sport ceased because of the pandemic. 

A challenging couple of years forced us to think differently, and live streaming community sport became a big part of our subscriber strategy. The success of that program led the business to create the concept of a standalone sport streaming platform – Streamer – which I was tasked with running. I’ve been doing that for the past three years, growing Streamer from a start-up with a few teams in Perth to a national platform with more than 400 clubs, thousands of games streamed a year, and support from partners like BHP.

What does a typical day look like in your role? 

Three years into the Streamer project things have settled down a little. In the early days where we did treat things like a start-up, I was doing the lot and running around like a headless chook, but as the project has grown and the team has grown, my role and my day-to-day has become more defined. 

At its core, my role involves checking in with the Streamer team from a content, club relations and product perspective and liaising and other departments within Seven West Media to make sure everything is ticking along as expected. We operate in a flexible and innovative manner wherever we can, with the goal of surpassing the expectations of the sports that we work with and our commercial partners. 

Outside of the general operations of the project, I have regular check-ins with our partner leagues to make sure we’re helping them make the most of their streams and pumping up their achievement’s week to week.  

We’ve always got smaller projects on the go as well, like event activation’s, competition planning, or new social media series, so diving into the strategy and execution of those is also a large part of my day-to-day. 

Who or what inspires you the most?

It’s not hard to find inspiration in this gig. Every day I’m talking to advocates of community sports who want to make their league or club or competition as good as it can possible be. Sport in general does so much good for society, and community sport does that in a tangible way, creating that sense of belonging, community and connection that makes the world go round. 

From a more global perspective I love people who take a punt on new formats or new presentations of sport to further connect with the next generation. Competitions like The Kings League in Spain or Overtime Elite in the USA make me very excited for the future of sports content. 

What is one of the most rewarding projects you’ve worked on at Seven West Media?

Streamer and the service it provides to community sport makes it an incredibly rewarding project to work on. I’ve loved working closely with the WAFL Women’s league as well, helping tell the stories of the players coming through that are going to be dominating the AFLW in future years – check out Zippy Fish when you get a chance.  

If you could give your younger self some advice, what would it be?

Don’t stop pushing the boundaries. Sometimes they’ll be a brick wall, but generally that’s where the gold lives.  

I’m not sure what the rules of this time-travel advice scenario are, but if possible, I would also supply some kind of sports almanac, Back To the Future-style. 

What does leadership mean to you?

I like to set the tone for a team by holding a vision, setting a direction, and letting people get to work. You’ve got to give people room to grow and make their own decisions but be ready to weigh in and redirect if things start getting too far off track. 

Create a situation where there are no bad ideas, but also there are no ideas so pure that they can’t be challenged – no matter where you sit on the org chart. 

But a leader should be ready to make the decision on the back of that process and be held accountable for it.