Introducing our new Queensland Events Manager Jodie Watson

Working for a Not-for-profit organisation involved in sport is a perfect fit for Jodie Watson, the newly appointed Queensland Events Manager.

Jodie has spent the past two years working for Family Business Australia (FBA), an organisation that provides access to education and training for family specific and general business development.

During her time at Family Business Australia, Jodie’s main projects were the Annual Lunch and National Awards Dinner, which places her in good stead for Queensland’s vast array of events spread throughout the calendar.

The decision to join the Men of League Foundation team was one sparked by a desire to return working in sport.

“It mixes that Not-For-Profit business with sport and that was probably what I missed most in the last two years. I got on really well with everyone at FBA but craved to be working within a sporting element again,” Jodie said.

In addition to that, the Foundation’s consistent efforts to broadening their target audience and demographics made it too good an opportunity to pass up.

“To be able to enhance what the Men of League Foundation are offering, for example further engaging with women and children, is really exciting to me.”

Her desire to work in sport stems back to the years 1998-2004, where she was a member of the ‘Stingers’, the Australian Water Polo team. Knowing that her career with the Stingers wouldn’t last forever, Jodie studied a Bachelor of Business & Marketing/Public Relations at the Queensland University of Technology to assist the tricky transition from elite sporting life to full-time work life.

“I managed to juggle working, studying and training all at once throughout my career.”

Following an injury prior to the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, Jodie made the difficult decision to retire and accepted a role working in the High-Performance Unit at Australian University Sport.

“I started off as part-time and casual before eventually moving into a full-time role, where my role involved managing the national teams that went away to University Games,” Jodie said.

From there, Jodie’s transition developed into working with Not-For-Profit organisations, before commencing with the Men of League Foundation.

We are excited to have Jodie on board and looking forward to seeing her enhancing and engaging aspirations for the Foundation come to fruition.