Cricket Australia appoints former Hyundai executive to senior role
Cricket Australia is set to announce former Hyundai executive Scott Grant as its new chief operating officer to fill the role previously held by chief executive Kevin Roberts.
The Herald understands Grant’s appointment will be confirmed in the coming days, with Roberts saying during the recent Test match in Brisbane an announcement was imminent.
Grant has been the chief operating officer of Hyundai Motor Company Australia for the past four and a half years and has a background in cricket.
HMCA said in a recent statement Grant was leaving the company to “pursue a career passion outside the automotive industry”, understood to be a significant executive role at CA.
Before working at Hyundai, Grant was chief executive at Lexus Australia before becoming a managing director at Holden Special Vehicles.
Grant has been the president of Bankstown District Cricket Club since 2005 and is well known in cricket circles. He is affiliated with the same club that Steve and Mark Waugh played at, as well as Roberts himself during the 1990s.
In 2017, Bankstown took out the inaugural Cricket Australia ‘Premier Grade Club of the Year’ award at the Community Cricket Awards held at the MCG.
Grant’s appointment is another step forward for CA in re-organising its executive team that was torn apart after the ball tampering scandal in South Africa and subsequent cultural review into Australian cricket.
Roberts and his team are still in the process of appointing someone to replace Pat Howard as a new executive general manager of team performance.
The CA chief indicated earlier this month there would not be significant changes to the role but said recently the position did not have to be filled by a former player, as many have argued it should be.
“We aren’t looking necessarily for a former player or another coach,” Roberts said on SEN Radio. “We’ve got a coach in Justin [Langer] for the men’s team and a coach in Matthew Mott in the women’s team.”
Former Australian player Belinda Clark has taken over as manager of team performance but only in a caretaker capacity until CA finds a replacement for Howard, the former Wallaby who joined the organisation in 2011.
Western Australia's high performance chief Ben Oliver has been considered a leading contender to replace Howard while Queensland's Brett Jones and former Test seamer Stuart Clark, who is now a NSW Rugby League executive, have also been mentioned. Belinda Clark is expected to continue in an acting role until March.
There are also two places left to fill on the CA board - one an independent and one a delegate from NSW - after the resignations of chairman David Peever and director Mark Taylor last November.
Peever quit days after the release of the Longstaff report into the organisation's culture, while Taylor stepped aside soon after, saying the turmoil of the previous 18 months had "taken its toll".
Roberts was unveiled as the new CEO of CA in October having served as the governing body’s COO for three years and fronted the bitter pay dispute with players that was finally resolved in August 2017.
The former NSW cricketer followed in the footsteps of James Sutherland, who announced his resignation in June last year having been with the organisation for 20 years, mostly in the top job.