Cameron Schwab

Cameron Schwab's Biography

“You cannot just DO leadership, you must BE leadership” 25 years as a CEO of AFL clubs, Cameron learnt quickly what it meant to BE LEADERSHIP. As a leader in the unforgiving, unrelenting and often ruthless environment of elite sport he discovered the expectations of the position often move faster thank your capacity to build capability.

As a result of these experiences, Cameron now works with CEOs and emerging leaders across many industry sectors and organisations to achieve high levels of trust – personally, culturally, strategically and organizationally, as the basis of high performance.

He is also a compelling story teller and speaker who draws upon his 25 plus years as a leader to enable his audiences to be courageous, confident and creative leaders.

After cutting his teeth as a recruiter at the Melbourne Football Club when the Demons made the finals for the first time in 23 years, Cameron was appointed CEO of the famous Richmond Football Club at age 24, the youngest in the history of the game.

For most of the next 25 years, he was CEO of Richmond, Melbourne and Fremantle, when those clubs were at their lowest ebb, both on and off the field. He is the second longest serving CEO in the modern game.

Having taken on some of the sport’s most difficult and daunting challenges, Cameron established a track record of building teams and organisations, unifying groups while navigating periods of genuine adversity and complexity.

He is a legacy-focused leader who has bounced back from setbacks, taking on the sport’s most challenging leadership roles.

Cameron holds an MBA and Master of Marketing from the Melbourne Business School. He has also completed the Advanced Management Program (AMP) at the Harvard Business School and is a Vincent Fairfax Fellow of the Centre of Ethical Leadership at University of Melbourne. He received his Coaching Certification from the Columbia Business School in New York.

His articles on sport and leadership have been published in The Age newspaper.

Cameron is also an artist and illustrator, studying Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA).

Key career achievements

•          Appointed General Manager (CEO) of Richmond Football Club at 24 and was the youngest person to hold this position. Cameron was tasked with developing and implementing a project called ‘Save Our Skin’ (SOS). It was this campaign that saved the club from bankruptcy and was nominated as Richmond’s ‘Defining Moment of the Century’ at the 2008 Centennial Celebrations.

•          As CEO of Melbourne Football Club his key objective was unification. Melbourne went from last to top 4 in one year and Grand Finalists two years later whilst operating profitably and growing attendances by 65%.

•          As CEO of www.afl.com.au (AFL’s official website), he developed strategies for the inaugural sale of the online rights to Telstra and is now one of the AFL’s most important assets.

•          As CEO, Fremantle Football Club was transformed from a loss making, debt laden club (that never placed higher than 12th) to a regular finalist and ranked in the top 3 AFL clubs in terms of profitability and resources. Revenue increased by 320% and the balance sheet improved by $13m.

•          12 months after assuming the role as CEO, Melbourne Football Club posted a profit after effectively loosing $3m in the previous trading year. Ongoing profitably enabled the club to extinguish $5m of debt and build an asset base of $6m. Revenue grew by 60% despite embedded strategic constraints.

Why book Cameron to speak?

•          There are few leadership speakers accessible in Australia today with Cameron’s vast leadership experience and his unique capability to engage with an audience.

•          He shares honest personal stories and real-life experiences, delving into the deep challenges he has faced as a leader, navigating change and building trust in teams and organisations over the past 30 years. It’s these stories that create an emotional connection with the audience from start to finish.

•          Cameron provides audiences with practical, useful tools and frameworks he has developed from his many challenging leadership experiences.

•          He honours the opportunity to speak to audiences with immaculate preparation, authenticity, energy and with a commitment that the audience will be moved and motivated to action.

•          His presentation, stories and content will resonate long after the audience has left the room.