How did you get into sport?

Leigh Russell – Former CEO of Swimming Australia. Navigating leadership at the highest levels of AFL, Netball and the most successful Olympic sport in Australia.

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Leigh's resume in sport is one of Australia’s most impressive having held leadership roles in some of Australia’s largest sports. This has included General Manager positions with the AFL players association, GC Suns and Essendon Bombers (AFL), CEO of Netball Victoria and Melbourne Vixens (Super Netball) and CEO of Australia’s most successful Olympic sport, Swimming Australia. What’s unique is in amongst a successful career she has also had to navigate an era where barriers around the perceptions of women in sport existed, as well as maintaining a thriving 25 year+ strong family network while working in the top echelon of sport. If you have ever had the thought of pursuing something outside of your reach, Leigh is an example of with someone who grew up as a young girl in a working class suburbs of Melbourne who through a lot of hard work, resilience and immense courage to step outside of her proverbial lane, went on to exercise her unselfish passion to help get the best out of others!


Highlights from the episode…

  • How we can we curate environments to maximise passion in young athletes to continue to pursue a lifelong career in sport?
  • Leigh shares how her career being one of the first female leaders in the world of AFL started at her kitchen table.
  • Having been a pioneer in her time, how Leigh has been able to break down barriers and position herself so that she can make a meaningful impact all while constantly needing to prove herself.
  • "Sport is described as being a merit-based system that rewards those who do the work. However, this only works if in the beginning everything was equal". What are we not considering when choosing the right candidates for roles?
  • We discuss how Leigh continues to summon the courage to pursue roles, what would be perceived, is being outside her circle of competence.
  • CEO recruitment process, what's involved and how she successfully navigated this process to become CEO of Swimming Australia.
  • What a CEO does, what are the KPIs, who sets the KPIs, the day-to-day workings, personal goals etc.
  • During one of the darkest and unforeseen periods in Australian Swimming, Leigh candidly shares how she personally navigated the Shayna Jack scandal.
  • Who do you turn too in a crisis? We discuss how leadership can often be lonely and why it’s important to have people around who you can depend on and trust.
  • In an industry that is not conducive to a family network, how Leigh and her husband have been able to build a beautiful family together for over 25 years while both working in elite sport.
  • How Leigh has been able to recreate and redefine her career pathway time and time again.
  • What Leigh looks for when recruiting top talent, maintaining a strong sense of purpose throughout an organisation and how to dismiss those who choose not to be part of the culture. 


People mentioned:

  • Kate Palmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-palmer-5874b110/?originalSubdomain=au
  • Laura Johnston: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurajohnstonpl/ 
  • Andrew Russell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elitehumans/
  • Shayna Jack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shayna_Jack


Leigh Russell contact details: 

  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leighrussell/
  • Website Russell Performance Co: https://www.russellperformance.co

Host: Luis Resa

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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.

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How did you get into sport?By Luis Resa