Cricket NSW parts ways with title-winning Sixers GM

A major organisational restructure has seen Cricket New South Wales part ways with Sydney Sixers supremo Jodie Hawkins whose tenure as the first female BBL general manager yielded consecutive titles over the past two summers.

Under the sweeping changes being implemented from next month, both NSW-based BBL general manager positions – with the Sixers and Sydney Thunder – have been dissolved with external list managers to be appointed but contracted to Cricket NSW.

Chris Botherway was previously GM of Sydney Thunder and will move to a newly created position of head of customer experience while Hawkins – who was appointed in February 2018 as the first female GM of a BBL outfit after seven years as the Sixers' marketing and communications manager – will finish with CNSW at month's end.

Image Id: A300C97C44F2408387533DE0F4A62E17 Image Caption: Hawkins has been with the Sixers since the very start of the BBL // Supplied

"Jodie was offered another role here and has decided not to take that up, and that's fine," Cricket NSW Chief Executive Officer Lee Germon told cricket.com.au today.

"I actually think, from Jodie's perspective, she's been involved in all the BBLs – all 10 of them – and has accomplished a lot and is ready to grow.

"Whoever ends up getting her will be very fortunate to have her.

"However, we're essentially scaling down from eight departments to four squads and while the BBL clubs – the Thunder and the Sixers – have had a big impact, we really want them to have even more impact across the whole organisation.

"We know there's competitiveness on the field, but we should be sharing best practice off the field and this, in some ways, is a natural evolution.

"We just felt the GM roles have evolved over the last couple of years – I was a GM four years ago at the Thunder – and we're replacing them with roles that are focused on customer experience, marketing and communications.

"It's not about Jodie or any individual, it's actually a continual evolution of how we run our Big Bash clubs.

"On the field, they are driven by a largely settled coaching set-up and settled playing squads and over the last year our cricket performance team members have played a major role in contracting and team list development.

"So a lot of that stuff has already been in play, and this is just a further evolution of it."

Hawkins declined to comment when contacted by cricket.com.au today.

CNSW began the process of devising and implementing a new strategic plan two years ago, before the Sixers had completed their back-to-back titles under Hawkins' leadership.

The initial result was a restructure of the cricket performance department that saw ex-NSW batter Greg Mail installed as Head of Cricket, former Australia and NSW Breakers star Leah Poulton as Head of Female Cricket and recently retired veteran Michael Klinger become Head of Male Cricket earlier this year.

Germon said the review was driven not by economic necessity nor by logistics associated with CNSW's shift from its former SCG home to new state-of-the-art facilities at Olympic Park.

Rather, it was recognition the organisation needed to change the way it delivered its programs and messaging "to make sure we are truly customer-focused and not top-down".

Apart from the removal of the two Big Bash general manager positions, Germon says the restructure will bring no further job losses and was expected to deliver a small increase in total head count with new appointments to be made in areas such as customer experience, marketing and communications.

The four new 'squads' that each comprise numerous subordinate teams are:

• Cricket Performance (led by Mail)

• Customer and Employee Experience (Anton Brown)

• Cricket Business Services (Michael Dalton)

• Strategy, Governance and Insights (Chris Muldoon)

The four 'squad' leaders form a streamlined executive team – downsized from 11 members – that will report directly to the CEO.

Germon acknowledged the absence of a female representative on that team was an unintended consequence, and foreshadowed that executive number was likely to increase to ensure greater diversity of personnel and experiences.

"We're hugely cognisant of that executive team being all males, but it was brought together for the specific reason of completing the strategic plan and to deliver the organisational review," Germon said.

"It's been kept deliberately small for that reason and will be scaleable, so I envisage there will be more members added to that executive team.

"We're really committed to developing our female leaders and we know that with that very small executive team, moving forward, it needs diversity of thought.

"The other side of that is we have some great female and male leaders coming through the organisation, notably Leah Poulton in her role as well as some wonderful female leaders who are making a significant difference to our community cricket teams.

"Plus we've just established three coaching apprenticeships for our most promising female coaches – Sarah Aley, Lisa Griffith and Hannah Trethewy.

"So we're really conscious of developing leaders throughout the organisation and this was not about female versus male, this was about the organisation and the structure and then deciding 'what does that look like?'."

Germon conceded that the term 'customers' – which encompasses aspiring junior cricketers, current players, volunteers, staff, fans and corporate partners – was often viewed as a "dirty word" among sporting organisations.

"I believe we need to view all stakeholders as customers in the future," he said.

"This approach, and design of the organisation, is centred on our purpose of inspiring everyone to play and love cricket."

Germon noted that while the COVID19 pandemic had brought many challenges over the past year, it also shed light on ways programs and messaging can be better delivered such as through the use of remote technologies to communicate with volunteers and regional communities.

He also claimed that NSW's recent on-field successes in the men's and women's competitions meant it was able to implement changes "from a position of strength" with elite-level results ensuring player registration numbers had not declined.

"It's certainly not throwing the baby out with the bathwater," he said of the major restructure.

"It's appreciating we've had some good success over a long period of time, so let's keep the things that really work well but the bigger theory of change is the ability to build relationships with our customers.

"We've got the really good aspects of on-the-field, and that's not changing dramatically through this re-design.

"It's largely off the field that this is going to have a major impact.

"And I believe that in sport you really never win or lose, you're either leading or following because it's always ongoing."