42 minutes ago, Dee-tonator said:

The right business and political contacts are far more important for a CEO than AFL experience as such.

Instead of prejudging Paul Guerra, I would suggest waiting to see what he brings to the club.

There are some very big football decisions to be made...AFL experience might just be a handy box to tick.

6 minutes ago, rjay said:

There are some very big football decisions to be made...AFL experience might just be a handy box to tick.

Who would want to be a CEO of an AFL club and especially this one. How quickly people forget. The last CEO was solely responsible for us getting our last Premiership. If it wasn't for him "interfering" in the football dept. and insisting the Coach not be sacked, we wouldn't have our latest Premiership.

How is this bloke equipped to make that decision one way or the other. Short answer. He isn't. Although to be fair that decision might make itself by the end of the season one way or the other.

7 minutes ago, Demonsone said:

The current CEOs of other clubs in particular the the bigger ones in Vic what’s their background & afl experience..

Richmond - Shane Dunne - internal promotion from 10 years at Richmond, worked for their gyms and pools business, previous experience with London Olympics
Geelong - Steve Hocking, AFL Head of footy, Geelong head of footy
Collingwood - Craig Kelly, AFL Player manager
Essendon - Craig Vozzo - West Coast head of football
Hawthorn - Ashley Klein - Hawthorn/Aus GP/Coll
Carl - Brian Cook - Geelong CEO, West Coast CEO. (Graham Wright incoming CEO - Coll, Haw)
St KIlda - Carl Dilena - North CEO/Board
WB - Ameet Bains - St Kilda list manager/COO
North - Jenn Watt, MCC/MFC

Freo - Garlick, Eagles - Pyke, Adel - Silvers (Hawks), Port - Richardson (internal promotion). GWS - Matthews (AFL), Sydney - Harley, GC - Evans (Haw), Bris - Swann (Carl, Coll).

It's actually quite amazing that 17 other clubs have people with AFL industry experience. The AFL is certainly an unusual industry but I struggle to see that's it's so unique that you have to be in it to run a club.

The big thing will be having him reliant on the footy experts on the Board as well as ideally finding him a mentor.

My god there is a lot of MFCSS up in here.

Here’s an idea, why not give the guy a chance to prove his mettle?

If at the end of his tenure, all that Guerra has been able to achieve is establishing a new home base, then he will have been a success.

On-field results drives everything. From attendance to membership to relevance to sponsorships to premiership's. Get that right and everything else falls in to place.

Paul Guerra is a massive Essendon guy, nearly joined their board multiple times and a huge footy fan. He hasn’t played at the top level but it’s not like we plucked this guy out of Antarctica. He knows enough and will bring far more commercially than others. This is key when we also have to assess a new home ground and a poor crowds.

FD decisions are made by a team, not by one person and it might actually help to take some emotion out of it and just make sound business decisions about an employees performance vs expectations

7 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

Richmond - Shane Dunne - internal promotion from 10 years at Richmond, worked for their gyms and pools business, previous experience with London Olympics
Geelong - Steve Hocking, AFL Head of footy, Geelong head of footy
Collingwood - Craig Kelly, AFL Player manager
Essendon - Craig Vozzo - West Coast head of football
Hawthorn - Ashley Klein - Hawthorn/Aus GP/Coll
Carl - Brian Cook - Geelong CEO, West Coast CEO. (Graham Wright incoming CEO - Coll, Haw)
St KIlda - Carl Dilena - North CEO/Board
WB - Ameet Bains - St Kilda list manager/COO
North - Jenn Watt, MCC/MFC

Freo - Garlick, Eagles - Pyke, Adel - Silvers (Hawks), Port - Richardson (internal promotion). GWS - Matthews (AFL), Sydney - Harley, GC - Evans (Haw), Bris - Swann (Carl, Coll).

It's actually quite amazing that 17 other clubs have people with AFL industry experience. The AFL is certainly an unusual industry but I struggle to see that's it's so unique that you have to be in it to run a club.

The big thing will be having him reliant on the footy experts on the Board as well as ideally finding him a mentor.

Spot on it’s as I thought, Pert our last CEO was part of 2 premierships and increase memberships and profitable clubs. Yet we have gone with a CEO with zip football club experience

His number one priority is Caulfield, plain and simple. As far as I'm concerned if he gets that over the line he's done his job. Fail to do that and we'll be ridiculed for the appointment whether it's his fault or not.

Can't say I'm all that impressed with this appointment.

The fact that we need to get him up to speed from a Football perspective is already a concern in itself.

7 hours ago, Its Time for Another said:

Who would want to be a CEO of an AFL club and especially this one. How quickly people forget. The last CEO was solely responsible for us getting our last Premiership. If it wasn't for him "interfering" in the football dept. and insisting the Coach not be sacked, we wouldn't have our latest Premiership.

How is this bloke equipped to make that decision one way or the other. Short answer. He isn't. Although to be fair that decision might make itself by the end of the season one way or the other.

What a ridiculous statement considering you’ve never met him or have any understanding of his previous work. Maybe stop judging people before they’ve even started the job

2 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Can't say I'm all that impressed with this appointment.

The fact that we need to get him up to speed from a Football perspective is already a concern in itself.

Maybe give a guy a chance before marking his papers

Edited April 28Apr 28 by Oxdee

10 hours ago, Timothy Reddan-A'Blew said:

...until the SRL is completed - runs right past it.

Anyone's State voting preferences affected?

I hope the Hawk's new training base has to be reclaimed for the SRL.

A CEO acts at the direction of the board. Perhaps also overlooked in all of this is that an outside perspective could be really valuable in meeting the boards objectives?

Im going to see how he goes before I run him down.. hopefully he is a wonderful guy and a great appointment….

A lot of posters were sick of the Old Melbourne boys club.... well we've well and truly gone away from that.

Could be a really good move to get someone who has operated outside of the football world so to speak. He may be able to bring some fresh new ideas and business connections, which is more important for the CEO role than knowing how to play football.

34 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Can't say I'm all that impressed with this appointment.

The fact that we need to get him up to speed from a Football perspective is already a concern in itself.

I'm happy to take a day off work and walk him through the Demonland threads over the last 12 months. He'll then be ready to pick the team for the Meth Coke game this weekend.

46 minutes ago, Oxdee said:

Maybe give a guy a chance before marking his papers

Did I say i had marked his papers?

a ceo with a racing victoria background? clearly an appointment with an eye on gettting caulfield done.

8 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

Richmond - Shane Dunne - internal promotion from 10 years at Richmond, worked for their gyms and pools business, previous experience with London Olympics
Geelong - Steve Hocking, AFL Head of footy, Geelong head of footy
Collingwood - Craig Kelly, AFL Player manager
Essendon - Craig Vozzo - West Coast head of football
Hawthorn - Ashley Klein - Hawthorn/Aus GP/Coll
Carl - Brian Cook - Geelong CEO, West Coast CEO. (Graham Wright incoming CEO - Coll, Haw)
St KIlda - Carl Dilena - North CEO/Board
WB - Ameet Bains - St Kilda list manager/COO
North - Jenn Watt, MCC/MFC

Freo - Garlick, Eagles - Pyke, Adel - Silvers (Hawks), Port - Richardson (internal promotion). GWS - Matthews (AFL), Sydney - Harley, GC - Evans (Haw), Bris - Swann (Carl, Coll).

It's actually quite amazing that 17 other clubs have people with AFL industry experience. The AFL is certainly an unusual industry but I struggle to see that's it's so unique that you have to be in it to run a club.

The big thing will be having him reliant on the footy experts on the Board as well as ideally finding him a mentor.

What does a list manager or footy boss know about running a business??

1 minute ago, BangBnagBang said:

What does a list manager or footy boss know about running a business??

Footy boss to club CEO is a pretty common pathway. Makes sense as they are basically running the most important aspect of the organisation.

12 hours ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

I went past it the other day and it's as much in the @rse end of nowhere as Casey Fields is. It's location might be OK for players located Bayside but if they plan on playing any VFL / AFWL games or allowing the public in for training days the nearest public transport is miles away.

"Miles away"? Caulfield Racecourse is right next to a train station with the unsurprising name of Caulfield Station. It also has tram lines at both its northern and southern ends.

As to Paul Guerra's supposed lack of football experience, why should this matter? Do we expect our hospitals to be run by doctors? Do we expect our courts to be run by lawyers? Do we expect the wholesale fish market to be run by a fisherman? I could go on...

From the Blue Ribbon Foundation website (PG a director there):

"Paul is the Chief Executive of the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI). He is an internationally experienced leader having held Managing Director/CEO and Chairman level roles across Australia and Asia Pacific.

"Paul was previously the Chief Executive of the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria (RASV), best known for producing the Royal Melbourne Show, world class food and beverage award programs and venue management and activation of the Melbourne Showgrounds.

"Prior to this Paul was Managing Director Asia Pacific for Optum International, a subsidiary of the United Health Group, one of the world’s leading providers of health services. Before joining Optum International, Paul was the Victorian State Director for Vodafone, and prior to this, he held an extensive 17-year career with Motorola finishing as the Director and Vice President for Motorola Asia Pacific.

"Paul holds an honours degree in electronic engineering from Swinburne University, a post graduate diploma in management with a major in marketing and has completed several short management courses in the USA.

"Paul is involved in several boards, not-for-profits, and start-ups. Paul is also an Australia Day Ambassador and a proud Victorian."

Some minor concerns he's not from a football background but he's obviously a talented businessman.

Hopefully he steers us in the right direction and we start ticking off some items on the to-do list.

24 minutes ago, KozzyCan said:

Footy boss to club CEO is a pretty common pathway. Makes sense as they are basically running the most important aspect of the organisation.

might be a common pathway but doesn't answer the question, Would Richo have been a good candidate??

Just now, BangBnagBang said:

might be a common pathway but doesn't answer the question, Would Richo have been a good candidate??

Not sure about Richo. Had the footy boss job thrust upon him and never really seemed cut out for it. Josh Mahoney was Peter Jackson's favourite to take over after him a while back though.

A footy boss getting the top job would give a decent amount of industry experience that would work in their favour but they might need to learn more of the business side, just as a CEO from outside the industry would need to learn about the AFL industry.

Don't think either option is inherently superior to the other.

10 hours ago, Deebaser said:

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/we-re-not-performing-to-what-we-should-be-saints-boss-backs-lyon-spray-20250428-p5luqw.html

The competition sources said Guerra is a strong strategic thinker with good people skills. The club believes they can bring him up to speed on football.

This is a joke right?

I'd rather a CEO who is a fantastic strategic thinker and overall business manager than a big footy person.

More than half the staff at the MFC would work in commercial related departments, not in the footy department. Sure the purpose of the corporate services is to support the football department (including raising revenue to allow it to run) but the footy department is a relatively small part of the organisation. In my opinion if the CEO is regularly making football department decisions, then we would likely have a very inefficient organisation.