Career Path: Kieren Perkins’ Olympic Journey Through Business

Kieren Perkins

Gold medal-winning swimmer Kieren Perkins discovered what he was made of when he swapped the pool for the corporate world.

Find the light on the hill

2022-present | CEO, Australian Sports Commission

“When I announced I got this job, a lot of people said, ‘Why would you want to join the government with all its bureaucracy?’ I was like, ‘Well, if you say that, you don’t understand that sport and the politics of sport are infinitely harder and more challenging than anything that goes on in government.’ Since I’ve arrived, what’s become really clear to me is that all the human behaviours and all the value sets that I’ve experienced within my time in this business are exactly the same as what you find in any large corporate bureaucracy. There are different acronyms= and some different processes but the behaviours are all the same. The funding role we have in delivering the federal government’s strategy for sport means that I am arguably the only person in sport in Australia who is responsible and focused on the system, not an individual sport or an individual component of sport. I’m finding it really inspiring and engaging but sport is a massive beast that is filled with amazing amounts of passion and deeply entrenched levels of ambition and ego that are often enabled by the status quo not being challenged. But the 2032 Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games are the light on the hill that we’re all aiming for so everybody is motivated to achieve the ultimate outcome together. We can see what we’re all working towards.”

Be aware that your words have power

2021-2022 | CEO, Australian Unity Bank

“I’ve learnt that the impact I have in everything I say and do stretches far beyond what I can visibly see. I saw this at NAB, too, where a leader would have a question or an idea and throw a comment out without actually giving any reflection to the cascade of events that would lead to thousands of hours of work by at times hundreds of people to provide an answer to something that the leader wasn’t really that worried about. It was just a brain fart. So coming into this role, I had to edit myself and be far more conscious of the shadow and the way that shadow impacts the people around me.”

Frustration is not your friend

2019-2022 | President, Swimming Australia

“I joined the swimming board in 2001, left at the end of 2007 and came back in 2019. I assumed that the system and everybody in it had spent 10 years growing and evolving like I had. But it was the same sport with the same personalities engulfed in the same petty, ignorant, political, myopic challenges – along with all of the incredible inspirational and heroic activities that happened as well. I found myself surprised and challenged by the groundhog day feel about it. I’d had 10-plus years in a corporate environment where we were diverse across gender and cultural lines, mature in our governance and risk management… all the stuff you take for granted in a corporate environment. I had to reset and start the process again. How do I engage my experience and knowledge in a way that brings people with me? How do I suppress the frustration that some of this stuff is just not being delivered the way that it should be? It was a big challenge and a big moment for me.”

Push boundaries but not people

2020-2021 | Executive direct, NAB Retail

“This was the first time that I took on a strategic role and had to execute it end-to-end on a massive change program to create a business that I then had to run. One of my big strengths as an individual is that I don’t really have a limit. You do this in training every day – move outside your comfort zone to push yourself to be the best you can be so that when you get into competitive conditions you can deliver your potential in any environment, under any circumstances. It’s the same in business. I’m used to pushing the boundaries. But that means I can pull businesses in too fast or challenge people well outside their comfort zones and break them – or break businesses – and set them up for failure. I got checked a couple of times and I needed to just slow down and help people catch up.”

Be humble and learn, learn, learn

2009-2012 | Head of private clients & business development, NAB Private Wealth

“If I’d joined NAB straight from sport, I wouldn’t have survived. We see it all the time with athletes who go into corporate life and it just doesn’t work because they’re not able to navigate the transition from being the best in the world [to thinking], ‘I’m ready to be the CEO of any environment I go into.’ I joined NAB at 36 years of age so I was mature enough and self-aware enough to be able to do it. But I wasn’t a fully formed business leader by any stretch of the imagination. It was a bumpy ride because a lot of people assumed that I was employed because I could open doors and I would just be the celebrity. But I didn’t want to sell anything I didn’t understand. In that first 18 months, I got a lot more out of NAB than they got out of me. It was an enormous learning experience.”

Appreciate your own skills

2003-2007 | Executive consultant/ director, PST Systems

“When you retire from any elite sport, the transition is horrific. Sport is an unnatural environment; every day you wake up with certainty and clarity about what you’re doing, why you’re doing it and who is there to support you. On day one of retirement, all that is gone and you are on your own. Who am I? Why do I exist? What am I doing? Where do I go from here? When I finished swimming, I did a couple of keynotes with Clark Perry, who was the head psych for the swimming team, and that turned into co-facilitation, which turned into a business [to help] bring disparate people together to form high-performing teams. I learnt how to see the value in the knowledge and skills that I had and how to purposefully apply them and translate them to people who did not have that life experience.”

Understand the value of values

1992, 1996 and 2000 | Member of the Australian Olympic team

“In sport, you deliver high performance and excellence. You build teams and trust. You have feedback mechanisms. All of those things that enable sports people to be successful are just as valid in business – and life in general. I learnt to engage people around their knowledge and expertise to make me better. I was never afraid to ask for help and always willing to hear somebody’s story, experience and knowledge and to learn from that. I was lucky to have amazing mentors around me. My parents – and especially my dad – spent a lot of time and effort making me understand the importance of my values and why every time I turned up, everything I said, every outfit I wore, every relationship I had was a reflection of my values. Knowing who you are and what you stand for is incredibly important.”

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