Walter Lee

What does a normal day as General Manager of Strategy at AFL, look like for you?
I know everyone says it but there’s never a normal day. Our projects range from deals and transactions for stadium redevelopments, broadcast rights, and Collective Bargaining Agreements to work in the community with junior football growth strategies and policy development on social issues. We are always meeting with people who have passionately dedicated their lives to the game – players, clubs, broadcasters, sponsors, government, community leaders and volunteers. During the week, the league offices are always alive with excitement – players being interviewed in our studios for a show, coaches meeting with our officiating staff or media called for an announcement of a league decision.

The AFL has been working hard over the last few years to increase diversity. As an employee of the AFL, what does their diversity plan mean to you?
Our most significant investment in the last five years has been the establishment of the elite women’s football competition, AFLW. The new league has been exciting to watch grow and has proven to be a tremendous catalyst for social change in our game and the community. It has had a profound impact on inspiring more girls and women to play, follow and work in our game. Our diversity and inclusion plans are critical for helping us set up the right environment where we can attract the best people to our game, diversity is valued and all our people can feel they can bring their very best of themselves to work everyday.

How did your time at Strategy& set you up for your role at the AFL?
Consulting gave me the most amazing set of craft skills that I still use today. Breaking down and structuring complex problems in a diverse range of situations. Working fast under pressure but still maintaining a high level of rigor and integrity. Assembling people into teams on short notice to achieve a goal. Actually, possibly the most truly underrated consultant skill is the ability to travel by plane to multiple cities in a week with only a carry-on bag.

There are many approaches to developing a strategy, where do you start?
For me, I have found it important to spend time to listen to the people involved and impacted by a strategy. Even if that means travelling out to communities to understand what might really be going on. Only after doing this, does it make sense to look at data to see what correlates. Otherwise it’s just analysis not strategy making. The best strategies also stand up to repeated questioning - I really enjoy the process of testing and iterating positions.

A key challenge with strategy is seeing it through to implementation, how do you ensure strategy is followed through?
I think rallying people to deliver a strategy is getting harder and harder. It is difficult to get people to sit up and listen. I think successful strategies need to be distilled to their most concentrated and simplest form. It needs to be the same set of simple messages that can be repeated. Strategy is confusing when people are seeing a new version every time. As the media advisors say in politics - keep on the same message until you are sick of saying it, then people are starting to hear you.

What would be the highlight of your career to date?
There are so many. I really enjoyed my time travelling the world to consult to clients in a lot of unexpected places – oil rigs, helicopter bases, coal mines and regional freight trains. Since then, I have had a lot of fun starting new ventures to grow the game. In the past ten years, we have started two new AFL clubs in expansion markets, Gold Coast Suns and Western Sydney GIANTS, an AFL Media business which now runs Australia’s #1 sports digital property and a growing AFLW competition with 8 clubs growing to 14 next year. I think there is still so much to achieve and I’m not ready for a highlights reel of my career yet.

What are some of the most fulfilling parts of your job?
I was always interested in how I could make an impact on communities and people’s lives. Football taps into everyone’s sense of belonging. There is a rich history and legacy in the game to draw inspiration from. A late colleague of mine here who I regularly sought sagely advice from, used to always remind me to never forget how much this game means to so many people. It’s a truly unique privilege to be part of such a powerful vehicle to achieve such positive social outcomes.

What are challenges do you face in your role?
Being under the public microscope – there are more accredited media who cover AFL than journalists covering politics in our nation’s capital. With the profile, interest and popularity of AFL in the community also comes an intense scrutiny of the decisions we make by the public and media. It’s important to keep reminding ourselves this is a privilege we have and to keep encouraging our people to take risks and embrace failures so we can keep progressing the game.

How is the digital age changing the face of footy?
I’m excited for the many opportunities that technology brings to change how our fans watch the game. I grew up playing a lot of video games and there is a lot of inspiration we can draw on how games are presented to provide fans with live statistics, game information, highlights/replays and different camera angles. Beneath every game, every play and every player there is also a rich story of data and statistics that technology will help us unearth. The opportunities this brings can really stretch our imagination.
Can you give us any insight into the future direction of the AFL over the next 5 years?
There are so many exciting projects we have underway that will come to life in the next five years – a re-developed AFL stadium in a revitalised Victorian Docklands precinct, a sustainable and growing AFLW competition, exciting new innovative formats of the game, possible expansion overseas and more diversity in our game on and off the field.

The best piece of career advice you’ve ever received?
“Don’t let others run your career for you”

Lastly, we have to ask which Club do you barrack for? (Assuming you’re allowed to follow a Club!)
I love all our Clubs equally