World Class to World Best

Award-winning journalist, author and broadcaster, Sam Lane is a trailblazer. Her experience and reach across media platforms is unique.

Sport Australia Awards winner and 2019 Walkley Awards finalist for her interview with Adam Goodes, Sam has also won two Quill Awards from the Melbourne Press Club and was a Walkley recipient for Fairfax Media in 2013 covering drugs in sport.

Sam's first book, ROAR – the stories behind the rise of AFLW, is unparalleled. Launched by Australian luminary Natasha Stott-Despoja AO, ROAR is multi-award winning and has formal endorsement from Australia’s only woman Prime Minister, Julia Gillard AC.

Sam has been engaged to discuss change catalysed through the rise of women’s sport since ROAR’s 2018 release. In October 2019 she delivered a keynote address on the topic at the Australian Embassy in Paris, France.

Selected for the inaugural Sport Australia-Australian Institute of Sport executive talent program in 2019, Sam sits on the new AIS Athlete Wellbeing and Engagement Advisory Committee. The committee is chaired by iconic athlete, Ian Thorpe AM, and Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry AO, and Richmond Football Club president Peggy O’Neal AO are fellow members.

Sam is a co-host and boundary rider for the Seven Network’s telecasts of AFL women’s matches and joined AFL men's telecasts with Channel Seven’s Saturday Night Footy team in 2013. Sam was part of Seven’s record-breaking broadcasting of the 2018 Commonwealth Games, covering cycling. She became a regular on the network’s flagship program, Weekend Sunrise, in 2018 as a ‘Sport Talk’ guest.

In 2020 Sam presented, and executive produced, a podcast series for the Richmond Football Club – The Originals – that hit number one Australian sports podcast on Apple iTunes charts upon launch.

Sam covered three Summer Olympics for Fairfax Media – assigned Olympics Reporter for The Age in 2012 - and has reported from the Tour de France on three occasions.

Top corporates and sporting clubs engage Sam as a keynote speaker, event host, conference moderator and consultant. Clients include QBE, Virgin Australia, CGU, National Australia Bank, Sport Australia, the Australian Institute of Sport, and the Sydney Swans and Richmond AFL football clubs.

She spent ten years with Australia’s best-known comics on Channel 10’s Before the Game and was on ABC TV’s Agony Aunts series. Her extensive radio experience includes Melbourne’s ABC 774, SEN 1116 and 3RRR.

Veronique earned her doctoral degree in sport science from the University of Montreal then went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship in sport psychology at Florida State University. Her research focuses on the effects of creativity enhancement on motor performance and psychological adaptation.

She currently has a rich and varied performance psychology practice primarily working as a mental performance consultant with different Canadian national teams (e.g. water polo, artistic swimming) and individual elite athletes (e.g. gymnastic, figure skating, trampoline, etc.). As a Mental Performance Advisor for Cirque du Soleil, Veronique Richard supports artists to optimize their performance and ensure their well-being. Additionally, she is an associate researcher at the Montreal National Circus School working on several creativity projects.

Finally, building on her research and applied experiences, she has designed a program to stimulate creativity which combines movement improvisation, creative problem solving and collective ideation. With this program, she has helped coaches and athletes to create their next practice in organizations around the world such as Cricket Australia, Swimming Australia, AFL teams, Coaching Better, PAISAC, NXT WWE, and PGA.

Eddie Jones, head coach of the England men’s senior team, is meticulous in all aspects of the game. Since taking up the role in November 2015, he has taken England to a Rugby World Cup Final, beating reigning champions New Zealand on the way, and masterminded back-to-back Six Nations titles including the Grand Slam in his initial season as England’s first head coach from overseas. In the process, Jones extended his winning run to a world record equalling 18 games – an unprecedented achievement by a new England coach that included a 3-0 clean sweep away against Australia in June 2016.

A former New South Wales hooker, he took charge of the Wallabies between 2001 and 2005. Australia reached the 2003 Rugby World Cup final on home soil, losing narrowly to England. He acted as technical advisor to South Africa for the 2007 Rugby World Cup, which they won. Jones has also coached Saracens and Japan, topping his three years with them by creating the biggest shock in Rugby World Cup history when the Brave Blossoms beat South Africa 34-32 in 2015.

Katrina Powell is a three-time hockey Olympian, winning Gold Medals at both the Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.  Completing her career as Captain for the Athens 2004 Olympics, Katrina played over 250 games for Australia, scoring 141 goals.  Growing up in Canberra, Katrina faced numerous challenges, including enduring back to back knee reconstructions in order to achieve her goals.

Stepping into a coaching role post her playing career, Katrina coached the National Junior Women’s Squad and progressed to Assistant Coach of the Australian Women’s Hockey team, the Hockeyroos. Having coach at World Cup and Commonwealth Games level, Katrina is currently the head coach of the Women’s Hockey Program at the NSW Institute of Sport and leads the NSW Pride in the newly formed Hockey One domestic competition.

Darren is an experienced facilitator, coach developer and systems convener with a demonstrated history of working internationally with elite coaches and performance leaders to develop strategy, design systems and programs, implement processes and support learning and the growth of individuals.

Darren is a visionary in the field of coach learning, who is always prepared to challenge traditional thinking in the search for better and was a key architect in the growth of Australian Cricket’s Elite Coaches, following two decades as a respected cricket professional working with international cricket organizations around the globe. He recently founded his own consulting business, Coaching Better. Learning is key to Coaching Better and everything offered is underpinned by evidence-based research. Creating value through connecting a vast network across international sport, and the sport coaching academia, Darren has developed an ecosystem of coach expertise and support to facilitate a variety of experiential learning opportunities in secure social learning spaces, such as immersive study tours, re-treats, exchanges, forums and summits.

Darren has a passion and commitment to support the elevation of coaching as a profession through learning and continuous improvement. He has established an array of resources, services, and bespoke programs to support coach growth, development, practice, performance, and well-being, across all sporting domains.

Darren possesses a Bachelor of Exercise Science (B.Ex.Sc.) with majors in both Exercise Science and Sport Management from Griffith University, and has contributed to several published academic articles and book chapters.

Judy Murray OBE is a former Scottish international tennis player with 64 national titles to her name.

She became Scottish National Coach in 1995, the same year that she became the first woman to pass the Lawn Tennis Association’s Performance Coach Award. She initiated the Scottish Development School programme which ultimately produced four Davis Cup players and one Fed Cup player, including her Grand Slam winning sons, Jamie and Andy.

In 2011, Judy was appointed Captain of the British Fed Cup Team and used this role to grow the profile and numbers in women’s tennis across players and coaches. Judy has developed several tennis initiatives including Miss-Hits, a starter programme for girls age 5 to 8, Tennis on the Road, which takes tennis into remote and deprived parts of Scotland, and, most recently, She Rallies, a programme with the LTA, to encourage more women and girls into playing and delivering tennis across the UK.

In June 2018, Judy launched the Judy Murray Foundation with a simple mission to build workforces in rural and disadvantaged communities in Scotland in order to give many more people the chance to play tennis.

Judy is also a Community Ambassador for the WTA and creates community activation around some of the major events.

Dr. Amantha Imber is an organisational psychologist, founder of behavioural science consultancy Inventium, and co-creator of the Australian Financial Review’s Most Innovative Companies list. Amantha has helped companies such as Google, Apple, Disney, LEGO, Virgin Australia, Commonwealth Bank and many others innovate more successfully and reinvent the way they approach their work.

In 2019, Amantha was named as one of the Australian Financial Review’s 100 Women of Influence. Amantha is also the host of the number one ranking business podcast How I Work, where she interviews some of the world’s most successful people about their habits, rituals and strategies for structuring their day and being more productive.

Amantha’s thoughts have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Entrepreneur and Fast Company and she is the author of two best-selling books: “The Creativity Formula” and “The Innovation Formula”.

Dr. Hughes is a Sport & Exercise Medicine Physician with 25+ years experience working in high performance sport. He is currently Chief Medical Officer of the AIS and Medical Director for the Australian Olympic Team for Tokyo 2020/2021.

Experience includes Super Rugby, NRL and English Premier League football. He attended London 2012 with the Opals and Rio 2016 as Olympic Team Medical Director. He is a former President of the Australasian College of Sport & Exercise Physicians (ACSEP).

Dr Hughes’ current work focus is on system-wide protocols to optimise athlete health & safety, and ethical/integrity challenges in high performance sport.