Murray Elbourn, CEO Blind Sports NSW

Alex Mednis & Nicholas Watkins, Australian Sports Professional Association
Murray Elbourn, Blind Sports NSW

Bonus content

Each CEO has bonus content available to ASPA members that is not found in the book. The philosophies below are sourced directly from the interview, however each interview contained so much great content we had to put together an excerpt. Note that the content of the interview differs than the philosophies.

Interview

From a background playing cricket and rugby in the front yard, to working for Konica Minolta in the United States for over a decade, Murray has a wealth of corporate experience that he has bought into sport. 
 

After working in the world of corporate business for over a decade, how did you find that transition? I imagine Konica Minolta had thousands of employees, office buildings, each with a print room, reception, and office services. 

(Laughs) Yes, I can see where this is going. 

Then you come into sport which is the complete opposite. You are the staff, you are the office building and you are the print room. 

It definitely was a bit of a change. I knew what I was going into as I'd been in sport growing up, but the reality of the resources was a bit of a shock to the system. However, I saw a vision for what I wanted the organisation to be, and what I thought it could be, so I hit the ground running.

So almost another decade on, where are your sports at now?

Collaboration with corporate partners has been so important. It has really enabled Blind Sports New South Wales to take that big next step an we've gone from strength to strength. I was looking at our bank account the other night, and it's been the highest it's ever been in the 45-year history of the organisation. 

It gives me a bit of pride to be able to say, "Okay, well, we're not at that end goal of where we want to be yet, but we're a lot better off than we used to be!". It's a great feeling.

And how has that translated into the sporting success for the sport?

Thinking about Goalball, which I recently stepped down from the board of - when I started, we had two members training with no state teams. Since then, we won eight national championships and have been able to do a lot of things with goalball for schools. I think that's the end-goal isn't it, of any sporting organization, getting more kids involved.

Regarding your comments about Blind Sports being in the strongest positions, do you think that that's a result of a shift in the market, and maybe more support from government? Do you think that it is just a necessity for sporting organisations to exist in the day and age?

I think I'm lucky in the fact that I work in sport, and I have worked in sport, and I have good connections, and so I understand what projects and scope needs to be in place to be able to attract funding, especially through grants.

However, I also believe that with the evolution of the National Disability Insurance Scheme there has been a lot more opportunity to apply for larger grants to deliver adaptive sport and adaptive recreation in sport.

Combined with the support from the Office of Sport and different funding mechanisms happening in that space, I would say that, "Yes, there's a lot more opportunity," provided you know how to apply and get that kind of grant funding.

Do you think that the grant side of things is a reliable revenue model moving forward?

I think moving forward, all of sport, especially disability sport needs to have a balanced approach to that, because with the major sports, if they rely on a TV contract, and they rely on grant funding, that grant funding can go away in an instant. 

Where does the board fit into this with respect to helping to bring investment?

I think they can be heavily involved. In the last two years I've brought on two Paralympians onto our board, who have higher profiles in winter sport and big sports, to be able to look at a more rounded approach to how we deal with fundraising.

My message to the board is now, "We need to be nimbler. We need to have better process, and we need to collaborate more." And that incorporates all of us.

How did you go about identifying these board members? That's a challenge for sports that might not have those connections

I felt like Blind Sports New South Wales didn't have the profile that I wanted it to have.  As an example, after the last Winter Paralympics, Melissa Perrine, who's on my board now and has been since that time, I found out her details and I sent her a message. 

She won two bronze medals at the Winter Paralympics for downhill skiing, and I said, "It's a great story, congratulations. Would you like to sit on my board?" She lives in Mittagong in regional New South Wales, and I thought it was a great opportunity for her, but also a great opportunity for us to be able to do that. We previously had gold medallist Prue Watt on our board. She won a gold medal in swimming.

Attracting those sort of athletes raises the profile of your organisation, and also builds trust with people that you're wanting to collaborate with.

At a staffing level, how do also bring the staff into this journey as well?

You need a good combination of throwing them in the deep end a little bit, and making them learn on the run, and to experience how they best learn as well. I'm a big believer in understanding that, so with anyone that I hire or I work with, the first question I'm asking them is, "How do you best learn? Are you a visual learner, hands-on, doing?" And once I understand that ,I can then better work with them.

You also have to give them creative freedom to feel like they are trusted in the organisation from day one. You have to put staff in situations where they can learn and grow by doing different things. 

What do you for yourself to continue that professional and personal development?

When I got the job at Konica Minolta as the internal business manager, I was a little bit out of my depth and so one of my mentors has been Jack Welch who is involved with Harvard Business School, but also used to be the CEO of GE in America. I read a number of books, I just listened and listened to podcasts and gathered information. I'm very much an audible learner.

Can we just revisit that, Jack Welch was your mentor, or you liked listening to his podcasts?

I actually did a course with Jack Welch.

Far out.

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