'Best CEO ever': Abdo officially replaces Greenberg as NRL chief
Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V'landys predicts Andrew Abdo will be the game's greatest-ever chief executive after officially unveiling him as Todd Greenberg's replacement on Thursday.
Abdo has been in the role in an interim capacity following Greenberg's departure in April and has sufficiently impressed to be handed the job full-time. The game's former chief commercial officer has had a strong working relationship with V'landys and has also won over influential club figures over the past five months.
NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo.Credit:NRL
His appointment on Thursday provides the NRL with stability at a time when there has been a churn of sporting executives across Australian sports.
V'landys gave Abdo a huge vote of confidence during Thursday's media announcement.
"Andrew has impressed the commission while he has been the interim CEO with his commercial acumen, his calmness and his work ethic has been outstanding," V'landys said. "We didn't need to look far.
"I would say to you today, and I hope I'm right and I know I'm going to be right, that Andrew will be the best CEO the NRL ever had."
South African born and raised, Abdo is a chartered accountant who worked for Deloitte in Johannesburg, Bermuda and Sydney before he joined the NRL.
"I'm going to start off with a quote from one of my heroes growing up as a child in South Africa and that's Nelson Mandella: 'Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It creates hope.'
"This is an absolute honour and the highlight of my career," Abdo said.
Abdo's top priority is to overhaul the cost structure of the game, a process which began earlier in the week when the positions of executives Nick Weeks and Liz Deegan were made redundant.
"We need to remove costs, we need to secure revenues and we need to reset the culture inside our game," Abdo said.
"More trust, more transparency and more action ... Cost cutting has been an ongoing process for this whole season. We have removed significant costs in 2020 just to survive.
"We are aiming to remove $50 million (in costs) from the business in order for us to be sustainable going forward."
The 43 year old added: "I've been passionate about sport my entire life. When my wife and I decided to move to Australia it was rugby league that helped create our networks. Almost all of my friends and business relationships have come from rugby league."
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