HOLLY RANSOM made history when she became the league’s youngest board member, proving age is no longer a barrier to becoming a decision-maker in the AFL.
The Perth-born, self-professed footy tragic was appointed last month after an extensive vetting process, with CEO Keith Thomas citing her as a ‘challenger’ who will bring a strong female perspective and expertise in engaging younger demographics.
A millennial business entrepreneur, G20 youth summit chair, Australian ‘100 Most Influential Women’ inductee, CEO, law/commerce graduate, ironman endurance athlete and now board member of the Port Adelaide Football Club - her experience and vision stretches beyond most 26-year-olds.
Portadelaidefc.com.au sat down Holly to talk Port Adelaide, young people and women in footy.
Steph Say: You’re the youngest board member of all time in the Australian Football League. How does it feel?
Holly Ransom: It’s so surreal. I’ve aspired for such a long time to one day make a contribution to this game and to be involved. The fact that the opportunity has come now, in the manner it has, is extraordinary. The incredible thing is that we’ve got a club which really wants the contribution that I’m able to make, and has really set me up to bring it.
SS: What does that say to you about Port Adelaide, as a club?
HR: I think what the leadership of the club is saying is, ‘we value contribution at any age, stage or gender.’
I’m looking forward to not only being an exciting team on-field, but also the most exciting and opportunity-filled place to be off it.
That genuine alignment of values, interest, contributions is so exciting. I’ve been absolutely humbled by the reaction, from all corners of the sporting community…the support for Port Adelaide’s progressiveness has been incredible.
SS: How important do you think it is to see young people represented in senior positions?
HR: I think it’s so important for any organisation that wants to ensure they’re relevant to that generation coming through. We talk about ageing populations a lot, and I think something we can lose perspective of is the fact that we’ve got 4.3 million young people in our country, and actually, for developed countries, that’s one of the largest sizes of youth populations.
The importance of having that at the table is enormous, just to make sure we’re conscious of how they want to view the game, how they want to contribute – there are little nuances in this generation that we need to make sure we’re designing for and engaging for.
SS: That said - from your perspective, how do we continue engaging young people in our game?
HR: One of the things the AFL in general has been doing a lot better is focussing on its digital content. Attention spans in the last 12 years have shrunk from 20 minutes to four minutes - it’s mental. You think about that and you go, ‘Wow!’
It’s not about long reads on stories, or the way we used to produce hour-long footy shows – [now] people want the nuggets.
SS: Do you think the way the way people are engaging with clubs, in general, is changing?
HR: People generally want to be able to see, touch and feel the real heart of the club as well. They want those personal stories, get to know key figures, and be drawn into why they should be backing and supporting the team. There’s been evidence of these shifts happening, and some clubs are doing it better than others. But I think that’s the direction we’re starting to see people moving as a whole.
SS: So I assume you’ve got plenty of ideas up your sleeve to bring to the boardroom table…
HR: Stacks. Though, one of the things I’m conscious of being new to the club. I live by the quote “seek first to understand before seeking to be understood.”
I’ve got lots of ideas, I’ve got an outsider’s perspective coming into the club - which I think is good - but at the same time I want to make sure I draw on the incredible wealth of experience in the ranks of the staff here, the board, and the members. They are the people who have been living and breathing this club far longer than I.
SS: So where do you see the role of women in the AFL, moving forward?
HR: It’s an interesting one. We [the football industry] have made progress, but I think it’s still important to put it in perspective, as probably 25 out of 180 [female board directors in the AFL]. We’ve got a way to go in encouraging women into leadership into the game. One of the things I’m really passionate about is actually creating employment opportunities and pipelines for women in the club - across the board, that’s probably one of the more challenging areas. We need to think about how we invest in our women and support them to grow.
SS: What about within the ranks of members and supporters. Do you see the role of women in that space changing as well?
Women control over 80 per cent of the dollar in terms of the spending power in this country. They’re our fastest growing viewership – most membership bases are seeing women as the major growing pool that they’re attracting into the game. There’s an acknowledgement that there needs to be a response to that, and women are going to be looking for certain different things in why they’re attracted to membership. I think what we’re going to see is a much more active attempt to think about how the game is packaged and taken to women.
One of the important things, to that end, is you want to see women on the board of the club you support. I want to see women writing stories about who we are and what we’re doing. I hope that we’re going to see a lot more ground made in women in leadership in all aspects of the game in the next 5-10 years, alongside the development of the women’s league, which is going to be a great advancement for women’s participation in the game.
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