The Board of Rowing Australia is responsible for setting the strategic direction for the organisation and overseeing its activities.
The current Company Directors are:
President and Chairman
Rob Scott
Rob Scott was appointed Managing Director of Wesfarmers in November 2017 following his appointment as Deputy Chief Executive Officer in February 2017. Prior to this, he was Managing Director of the Wesfarmers Industrials division from August 2015 until August 2017. He has held a number of leadership roles with Wesfarmers including Finance Director of the Coles Group and Managing Director of Wesfarmers Insurance. He previously worked with Deutsche Bank in Asia and Australia in various investment banking roles and is a past President of the Insurance Council of Australia.
Mr Scott is a dual Olympian in rowing, having stroked the Eight at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and a silver medallist from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics in the Pair. He started his rowing career in Perth Western Australia and was a scholarship holder at the AIS for a number of years. He was the WA Sports Star of the Year in 1997. He is McVilly-Pearce pin number 447.
Mr Scott holds a Master of Applied Finance degree from Macquarie University and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the Australian National University. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant and has completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.
Mr Scott currently lives in Perth with his wife Liz (an Olympic gold medallist in water polo) and two children.
Director
Malcolm Batten OAM
Malcolm Batten is a 1988 Olympian, 1986 World Champion, Commonwealth Games Champion and is McVilly Pearce Pin number 380. He has been involved in the rowing community for over 30 years and is a Life Member of both Mercantile and Commercial Rowing Clubs.
Malcolm started his rowing career as a coxswain at North Esk RC in Launceston in 1979. He moved to the Gold Coast in 1982 and rowed for a season with Tweed Heads RC prior to moving to Brisbane and joining Commercial RC. He was part of the first AIS scholarship holders in 1985 and held full AIS scholarships between 1985-1988. He moved to Melbourne in 1988 and has been a member of Mercantile RC since.
Malcolm has more than 20 years of experience at the executive level. During his career he has worked and lived in China, Puerto Rico and the USA.
Director
Georgia Beattie
Georgia Beattie is CEO of Bulla Park, Australia’s largest organic mushroom farm.
She is a modern farmer embracing the use of technology to achieve fast growth, she specialises as a turnaround CEO in agriculture, manufacturing and FMCG businesses. She began her career in the startup space Founding wine packaging business Lupé Wines in 2010. The company created innovative IP to manufacture a single serve glass of wine and raised venture capital to expand quickly into events, hotel minibars and airlines across Australia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China and Hong Kong. The company was acquired in 2016.
Ms Beattie spent a period in the tech industry as CEO of Realestate.com’s new venture Spacely as well as CEO of Startup Victoria before moving into agriculture. She has now fulfilled long time aspiration to get into farming as CEO of Australia’s largest organic mushroom farm Bulla Park.
Ms Beattie also contributes a significant amount of pro bono time on boards; Second Bite, Law Squared and the Australian Federal Government Accelerating Commercialisation Programme.
Director
Brigadier Alison Creagh AM CSC (Retd)
Alison Creagh has been President of Rowing ACT, is a National and International Para-Rowing Classifier and has been on working groups for both coastal and indoor rowing. She has served in a number of other roles in the sport over many years.
An accomplished leader and decision-maker reaching the rank of Brigadier in the Australian Army with extensive networks in Australia and overseas, Alison has over forty years of military and organisational leadership experience.
Alison is an experienced Non-Executive Director with a strong background in strategic planning, sports governance and administration, information and communications technology, cyber security, veteran community support and the Defence Industry. She boasts strong relationship and influence skills and has a practical understanding of the importance of building strong, direct relationships between boards and key stakeholders.
Director
Ben Dodwell
Ben Dodwell brings a vast amount of corporate experience to the Rowing Australia Board and is the current Head of Diversified Development at Charter Hall and ASX listed real estate funds management business with funds under management in excess of $38 Billion. Ben joined Charter Hall following the acquisition of Folkestone in November 2018, and was Head of Real Estate at Folkestone since 2011.
Previously he has held a number of senior executive roles at Stockland and Lend Lease where he has been responsible for the operations and profitability of significant real estate investment portfolios and development pipelines.
Ben is an Olympic, World Championship and Commonwealth Games rowing medallist having attended three Olympics, six World Championships, and three Commonwealth Regattas and is also the winner of seven Kings Cup medals. Ben’s service to the rowing community includes his membership to the Audit and Risk Committee and Chair of the Renumerations and Nominations Committee. Ben is McVilly-Pearce rower number 481.
Director
Rachael Kininmonth
Rachael Kininmonth at age 26 was inspired to row for her country in September 1993, at the announcement of Sydney hosting the games for the XXVII Olympiad in 2000. She started as a novice at Thames Rowing Club in London, moved back to Melbourne and realised her dream representing Australia for three consecutive years in the Women’s 8+: 1998 World Championships Cologne, Germany, 1999 World Championship St Catherine’s, Canada and 2000 Olympics in Sydney. She is McVilly Pearce pin number 459.
Rachael then retired and over the next four years had four children with husband and fellow rower Brad Kininmonth.
Rachael started her career in sports administration and event management at the Amy Gillett Foundation and spent 10 years in the cycling world. She moved to Brisbane in 2015 and is the Executive Officer of the Brisbane Schoolgirls’ Rowing Association (BSRA), Board member at UQBC, Committee member on the Queensland RowUnion event, and involved in many rowing initiatives to engage rowers and the rowing community in a range of competitive experiences to add variety to the sport at the grass roots level endeavouring to grow numbers.
Rachael has found her tribe in the rowing community and is honoured by this opportunity to work on the Rowing Australia Board with such distinguished company in a very exciting time for the progress of the Brisbane bid for 2032.
Director
Sally Leake
Sally is an experienced Company Director, a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) and a Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia. She has experience spanning government, private and not-for-profit boards in the health, education and community services sectors. She also has 20 years in executive leadership experience including senior corporate and strategic management positions at the AICD, Government House in Canberra, emergency services, higher education and the private sector, with early career experience in health.
In addition to qualifications in business, management and governance, Sally completed the High Performance Leadership Program at Oxford University.
Sally is focused on adding value to organisations through good governance, risk management, improving sustainability, strengthening community safety and effective influencing.
Director
Richard Finlayson
Bio coming soon
Director, Athletes’ Representative
Luke Letcher
Bio coming soon