Sue McNeill Farewells the Club Industry After 41 Years

Can you start by providing a broad overview about your career and where it all began? 

I was at Panthers for 32 years, where I started in the accounts department in the old Penrith rugby league club which used to be in Station Street. I was still in accounts when we moved to the new clubhouse, however I also did stock control and inventory, which I was nervous about - being 19-years-old in such a male dominated department — and from there I went into doing all the purchasing. 

It was then in around 1998 to the early 2000s that we had a massive number of amalgamations and very quickly went from one Club to 13 clubs. To make the group work cohesively we had a warehouse on the other side of Penrith where we held the stock for all the clubs and distributed from there. I was lucky enough to run that warehouse and be able to spend time in the other clubs which led me into operations, where I was temping for general managers here and there and getting a feel for these leadership roles.

So, around 2008, they offered me Group Operations Manager which I jumped at. I was in that role until around 2015 where I took a redundancy, and was off work for three months, when a friend of mine sent me the vacancy at Cronulla RSL for the CEO, urging me to apply for it. I went for the interview and two hours after I had left, they called me and offered me the role!

I'm personally so grateful for everything that I learned at Panthers and the opportunities that as young leaders we were afforded because there was no gender discrimination and we went from this small Club to this Ginormous club —  and we all had to learn how to run a Club that size — there were so many opportunities. I was truly blessed because it really enabled me to be the CEO I am today. 

Who have been your mentors and what’s some of the valuable career advice you have received?

I've been very lucky, I think I've been blessed — I've had such amazing people in my life. Roger Cowan was CEO at Panthers from 1965 through to 2005 before retiring and he was such a visionary. The things that people are doing today with leadership, we were doing in the 80s and 90s under his leadership. He believed in allowing you to grow as a leader, but he also allowed you to make mistakes so that you could learn. 

We did a lot of education on ourselves as people so that we would be better people at work and in general life. He very much life coached us with a lot of things and he was incredibly fair, so he was always someone that you could go to if something wasn't okay and he would absolutely listen. He was a bit brave too Roger, because he was a massive risk taker — he was always so excited to try different things and do different things and he wanted us as leaders to be able to experience that. 

There were a number of people that worked at Panthers that went on to be CEOs of other clubs and stay within the industry and it was all because of what he taught us and what he allowed us to be — so Roger's probably the biggest mentor in my life.  I also had Roger's son Max who was someone that was very wise and objective when you needed advice. 

Glenn Matthews who was my CEO at Panthers from 2005 to 2010 was also someone that I found that I could sit with and talk to and even when I went into the CEO role at Cronulla RSL we would talk often about the challenges of managing boards and managing the role differently.

I grew up in a Royal Australian Air Force household, so my dad was such a good mentor as well. He taught me about work ethic, he would say: “if you don't get the job done in eight hours, you need to stay there and get it done. You need to do the right thing by your employer.”

What is something that you have brought to Cronulla RSL that you are proud of?

I'm really proud that right through the Club we've created lots of good systems and procedures and there's some good young managers that are coming through that I hope will stay in the industry. The Club’s in a good position, it’s got money in the bank, we've started a development process and while that development is quite some time away, a lot of the groundwork's being done for Nathan Whiteside to be able to walk in and start smoothly because the development is was such a big decision for the Board to make in the first place. So, I feel like I'm leaving Cronulla RSL in a better place than when I got there. That's probably always been my whole ethic, you should always leave the business better than when you got there and when you walk away each day, you should feel that you've accomplished something every day. 

What do you see as the most challenging areas for the club industry at present?

I would say that the middle level of management is the biggest challenge that the industry faces at the moment, also being able to bring people into hospitality, have them love it like we used to when we started and for them to see it as a career. A lot of people are not seeing hospitality as a career these days like we did as 18–20-year-olds. I also think there are people just not coming into hospitality because it's hard work and it's long hours, plus you work weekends and I think that's where the industry has a real shortfall. There's also a lack of training and education of that level as well — I know at Cronulla we've got a couple of training managers and it's a program that we've run for a couple of years now. We need to identify the next generation of duty managers and hope that they will go on and stay in the club industry — that's the gap I see the most trouble with. It used to be the stepping stone to be an operations manager. I think that's the hardest thing, in that in 20 years’ time, or 10 years’ time, where are the next great CEOs going to come from?

What does the future of the club industry look like to you?

It’s going to continue to be regulated. I remember back in the 80s when I was young coming through and listening to Roger Cowan talk about gaming just as critically back in the 80s and 90s as we do now. So it's interesting while some things have changed, we still have poker machines issues, we still have alcohol issues — I think it will continue to be like that. I think as operators we've got to accept that we need to be smarter with how we deliver our venues because the good hoteliers are catching us and passing us, and I think clubs are still very slow to move. It's something that they need to address to be able to stay relevant going into the future. Some of the clubs are massive buildings and these big buildings are unsustainable — I think the club industry has got some massive change coming through it in the next 10 to 20 years and unfortunately, I would think that we're going to have less clubs, which is sad.  Venues have got to be just as beautiful on the inside as what they are on the outside and you must stay relevant.

What does the future hold for you, personally?

I'm exhausted, I think COVID in some ways really took it out of a lot of CEOs. I also feel like I've not been a good mother and wife because I've been so dedicated to my career. Not that my family have said that, but now it’s my time to be a really good wife, mother and grandmother. I'm very lucky, I've got a beautiful family and I've got beautiful grandchildren, so I want to be part of their lives. 

But planning wise, the first little bit will be taken up by a knee replacement operation my husband has coming up — he's an old retired footballer — so that's really between now and the end of the year sorted. But we're considering buying a caravan, upgrading our car and heading around Australia. We knew we wanted to travel and go here and there but we are actually pretty relaxed about plans because I've also said yes to doing bits and pieces of contract work because I still feel like I've got something to give back to the industry.

What is your advice for future club leaders?

Learn everything you can from our industry and put yourself out there. Cronulla is such an amazing Club that you can learn everything about the club industry because of its size. You can go anywhere after that, you can decide where you want to go, but learn everything, drive your CEO crazy because you have an overwhelming desire to learn and go that extra mile. Look for opportunity, sometimes opportunity doesn't present itself and I get hospitality is hard at times but enjoy it, you get to talk to people all day, get down on the floor and talk to people. You find so much out about people and general conversation, and you are in a position where you can make someone's day and that's what hospitality is about — it should never be a chore.

Do you have any final words for the industry and your fellow colleagues?

Just keep loving what you're doing, don't ever lose sight of it. Don't lose sight of a wonderful industry because that’s what it is. It's going to continue to have challenges, but it's such an important part of the community. So, focus on your community and continue to be valuable in the community.