ClubsACT CLUBSACTION MAY 2020
Taking time out with our CEO’s One thing this virus has taught us is: to take inspiration from our leaders ClubsACT takes this opportunity to share stories and experience from our leaders in the Club Industry during this very challenging time. First up is Ian Mackay, CEO, Canberra Southern Cross Club Group.
Describe your career in the club industry. My first role in the Club industry was with The Canberra Southern Cross Club, and come July it’s been six exciting years since I joined! Before joining the Club I worked in various roles in the racing industry including Tabcorp, Racing NSW, The Australian Turf Club and the Sydney Turf Club. Before all that I worked for big organisations particularly Mobil Oil and The Coca-Cola Company. The best memories of all my roles has been the people. I’ve been lucky to get to travel to some amazing places with work as I ran the Pacific Islands for Coke and then for Racing NSW I started a racing series called The Championships and got to travel to Japan to try and ‘’recruit” their horses to come to Australia for The Championships. One of my best memories was recruiting two horses to come to Australia for the first ever Championships series and both won big Group 1 races. An Irish horse called Gordon Lord Byron won the Ryder Stakes and the Japanese mare Hana’s Goal won the All Aged Stakes. I’ve worked with and for some inspiring people along the way but two perhaps stand out most. Robert Nason ran the betting or wagering division of Tabcorp and he is the smartest person I’ve ever worked for. He didn’t suffer fools and was able to cut through what he used to describe the ‘swirl’ of so many things going on at once to find the best path to achieve outcomes. The other is Peter V’Landys who I worked for at Racing NSW. More people may know who Peter is. He is tough as nails but also kind and loyal, and when goes after something is an unstoppable force to be reckoned with. As with everyone no matter what role they do I’ve faced lots of challenges through my work career but none bigger than what we are going through now. I’d rank the 3-4 weeks of mid-March to mid-April as the most challenging I’ve faced in my career. But using my past experiences, and helped enormously by a fabulous team here at the Club, I think we’ve been able to navigate it pretty well thus far.
Ian Mackay in 2014 with Morgan Cahalan the Irish owner of Gordon Lord Byron immediately afternoon his horse just won the $1million George Ryder Stakes at Rosehill
What is the most valuable lesson you have learned in your career? That no challenge is insurmountable. I do get frustrated when people tell me why something can’t be done. I learned off the leaders I admired that you can cut through to how something can be done and then have a relentless determination to achieve it. That’s not always popular and you do have to accept you’ll have failures along the way – but I’ve always tried to live to the adage of “a person who’s never made a mistake has never made anything at all’’. So I encourage my team to “have a crack” and through that our team has delivered really good outcomes like Snapper on the Lake, our Community Rewards Program and more recently a really thriving little home delivery service whilst we’ve been closed. Another key lesson I learned (from a manager I really disliked) was that “what gets measured gets managed’’. So I am fastidious about measuring trying to measure the success of programs and products we launch – it help’s you stop doing the bad ones and keep doing and improving the good ones. It’s the best way to learn from the mistakes we all make from time to time.
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