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Aaron Alsop is the Executive Director of High Performance for the Solomon Island National Institute of Sport (SINIS). Aaron's role requires him to manage over 75 staff members who service over 150 coaches and over 1200 scholarship athletes in a multi purpose high performance facility that rivals most facilities in Australia. Aaron talks about his journey from growing up in Toowoomba, initially studying nursing, then following his keen desire for adventure to now becoming one of the most sought after high performance managers in the pacific region. Aaron will share his eclectic background and non-traditional route into the field of high performance sport as well as the challenges, nuances and immense rewards that come with managing elite sport in the pacific region. 

 
Highlights from the episode…

• How Aaron went from completing a Bachelor of Nursing to then progressing into his first role in sport. 
• How working in palliative care shaped Aaron’s approach to working in sport. 
• What it means to be a “Specialists Generalist” and why this is important.
• The power of volunteering and how Arron’s opportunities at the highest level came from a mindset of being of service and how that led to the Director of Sport for the entire country of Papua New Guinea.
• How he overcame imposter syndrome to develop frameworks/processes that led to successful outcomes for the countries his worked in. 
• Why athlete well-being is more important than success, and when done well the success is inevitable. 
• How a bus ride encounter and knowledge sharing led to being offered the role as Executive Director of High Performance for SINIS.
• What it took to build a world class high performance facility from literally a patch of dirt in the Solomon Islands. 
• His current role consists of managing 72 full time staff, 30 volunteers, a facility that operates 87 hours/week, that has 400 visitors/day, servicing 30 different sports, which encompasses 1200 scholarship holding athletes...and that is only part of his job. 
• What Aaron looks for when hiring staff for specific roles in a National Institute of Sport. 

 

People mentioned: 

• Steve Johnson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wellbeingscienceinstitute/?originalSubdomain=au
• Anne Marie:https://vis.org.au/ceo-anne-marie-harrison

  
Aaron Alsop contact details: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-alsop-6091bb43/?originalSubdomain=au
• SINIS: https://www.facebook.com/SINIS.HighPerformance/ & https://www.instagram.com/sinis.highperformance/?hl=en      

Host: Luis Resa

Contact me on:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luis-resa-a975196b/
• Email: [email protected]

Thanks for listening and please leave a review. If you would like more information on anything mentioned in this episode simply send me an email.