Cameron Schwab

Cameron Schwab Book as a speaker/entertainer for your next event

Key Points for Cameron Schwab

Cameron Schwab was appointed General Manager (CEO) of Richmond Football Club at 24 and was the youngest person to hold this position. Cameron developed and executed a project called ‘Save Our Skin’ (SOS). It was this campaign that saved the club from bankruptcy and was nominated as Richmond’s ‘Defining Moment of the Century’ at the 2008 Centennial Celebrations.
As CEO of Melbourne Football Club his key objective was unification, the club having almost merged with the Hawthorn Football Club the previous year. Melbourne went from last to top 4 in one year and Grand Finalists two years later whilst operating profitably and growing attendances by 65%.
As CEO of AFL’s official website, he developed strategies for the inaugural sale of the online rights to Telstra and is now one of the AFL’s most important assets.
As CEO, Fremantle Football Club was transformed from a loss making, debt laden club (that never placed higher than 12th) to a regular finalist and ranked in the top 3 AFL clubs in terms of profitability and resources. Revenue increased by 320% and the balance sheet improved by $13m.
Appointed again as Melbourne CEO in 2008, 12 months after assuming the role as CEO, Melbourne Football Club posted a profit after effectively losing $3m in the previous trading year. Ongoing profitably enabled the club to extinguish $5m of debt and build an asset base of $6m. Revenue grew by 60% despite embedded strategic constraints.

Topics for Cameron Schwab

The Score Takes Care of Itself - Aligning Purpose and Performance
Elite sport is awash with contradictions and complexity. What is most often misunderstood, is professional team sport is not club versus club, it is system vs system - developed and implemented by the leaders of those organisations. It is my experience, that leaders and their organisations do not rise to the level of their ambition, they fall to the standard of their systems. It is the system that establishes the behaviours, aligned to purpose, that in turn institutionalises the values and culture, to achieve the goals of high performance organisations.

Cameron delivers a game-changing framework that aligns purpose and performance, particularly as it relates to the complex mix of culture, strategy, leadership and decision-making judgment.
Being Brave - The Authentic, Vulnerable and Courageous leader
As a leader, you are both the observer and the observed. You are being observed, even when you are losing confidence, results are down and you’re trapped in the busyness and complexity of modern leadership, emotionally drained and feeling isolated. You are struggling and don’t know where to get help without showing weakness, unsure of whether you have what it takes to turn-it-around, personally and organisationally. You are trapped in this cycle, when trying harder will simply not be enough. So, what do you do?

Cameron models his ‘Being Brave’ mantra - a seven-step process to find the answers for yourself, rebuild confidence, and be the leader you aspire to be.
Leadership is about the example you set and the culture you create
Your words tell others what you think, your actions tell them what you believe. The best leaders are not the most talented or gifted, they have established outstanding leadership and performance behaviours and habits. Behaviours are the product of personal and organisational habits, good and bad. For organisations with high-performance ambitions, or seeking turnaround, it will be the aggregation of marginal gains that will be the key to transformation. Great leaders have turned self-responsibility into a daily practice, performance habits that compound over time to establish their personal leadership mastery. Leaders then create leaders.

Cameron articulates four core leadership habits, immediately executable, to create the behaviours and culture to lead with authenticity and achieve high performance outcomes.
Leveling Up - What business can learn from professional team sport
Business often turns to the football codes when seeking to understand the key concepts of team, particularly, the role of leadership in terms of establishing a winning culture and executing a game plan.The best leaders I have worked with and studied in sport and business, all shared one key competency. While they may have approached the role with different philosophies and methodologies, they successfully created environments that enabled their teams and organisations, to access the full range of their capabilities. A winning organisation is an environment of personal and professional development, in which each individual takes responsibility and shares ownership.
Cameron fully explains a seven-step process, immediately executable, enabling leaders to establish performance accountability, where people consistently set high expectations of themselves and behave to those expectations, and most importantly, do the right thing, even when it’s hard.

Testimonials for Cameron Schwab

Cameron’s leadership workshop was one of the best I’ve been to. Practical and clear frameworks for leadership, with authentic and powerful delivery. Cameron’s experience as a leader in an elite sporting environment provides a unique perspective to leadership that I wish was taught more broadly. And a masterful storyteller!
Executive Manager Legal
REA Group

Cameron is authentic and real. He is also a great thinker who has been able to turn his experiences, both good and bad, into a practical toolkit that you can arm yourself with to succeed in leadership. In one training session, Cameron succinctly described the lessons that it took me 12 years to learn in business. But not only that, Cameron is all about implementation - the practical outworking of leadership skills in a tailored and achievable way.
CEO
Grant Ready

One of Cameron’s key messages is that ‘leadership is so personal’. He is remarkably generous in sharing his intensely personal journey and reflects on how this informs his leadership, trust and high performances frameworks. These models developed over 25 years of leadership practice resonated deeply with the CEO Forum members and provided them with fresh insights to take back to their own businesses.
CEO
International CEO Forum

Cameron absolutely smashed it out of the park. His presentation opened up the rest of the event to being authentic, which became the catch-cry for our retreat. He is world-class and will deliver outstanding content that is practical, unique and delivered with vulnerability and authenticity.
Marketing Manager
The Practice

Cameron Schwab’s presentation to the CEO forum was raw, passionate and insightful. His engaging style and willingness to share his own story in a way was at times raw and vulnerable. His insights into leadership and the challenges that go with it, gave me a lot to think about.
CEO
Ameropa Australia

Absolutely inspirational and will make a difference to what I think and what I plan to do. Cameron’s passion and great storytelling skill meant his message was delivered 100 times louder and clearer.
General Manager Australia and New Zealand
Armstrong Flooring

I was not expecting it to be so raw and authentic. I admire Cameron for opening up and showing his vulnerability. It made me question myself as a leader and analyse my own actions and identify areas I need to consciously work on.
Director
Accounting Confidential

Cameron is an amazing person. His business achievements and knowledge speak for themselves but his ability to understand and combine the normal struggles and challenges people face alongside of business challenges is where his strength lies.
General Manager
Michael Wilson Diamond Jewelers

Profound wisdom – He was like Master Yoda from Star Wars. Inspiring and thought provoking.
Director
Greg Hocking Real Estate

Excellent speaker. The overall feedback from attendees has been great. Cameron established a good rapport with the audience and conveyed his message extremely effectively.
Goldfields Esperance Area Consultative Committee Kalgoorlie Conference

Very well put together presentation, delivered in an extremely professional manner. Cameron was able to earn praise and acceptance from all of our delegates – even those one eyed supporters of another footy club!! An excellent session and I would recommend Cameron highly.
Local Government Managers’ Australia Conference

A quality presentation delivered in a relaxed manner using specific examples relating to the topics discussed made this a thoroughly enjoyable experience for all of our management sales team.
Celebration Homes W.A.

Excellent speaker. Very relevant and inspiring presentation – rave reviews from our group. Well done Cameron.
Medicare Australia.