Advisory Board

The Queensland Academy of Sport (QAS) Board aims to advise, guide, and support the successful delivery of the QAS 2032 High-Performance Strategy.

The board serves as an advisory Board to the QAS Chief Executive, Department of Tourism Innovation and Sport as well as the Minister Assisting the Premier on Olympics and Paralympics Sport and Engagement, the Hon Stirling Hinchliffe MP.

Currently, the QAS, through the Minister's office, is in the process of recruiting 2 new board members. The announcement of these members will be made soon.

Board members

Dr Renita Gerard AM OLY - Acting Chair

Renita has a professional background in the financial services industry and long involvement in elite sports. She is a dual Olympic gold medallist and was a member of the Australia Women's Hockey team from 1993 to 2000.

Off the field, Renita has fulfilled board roles with both the International Hockey Federation and Hockey Australia. In addition, she was appointed as an independent director for the Queensland Rugby League (QRL) Board in 2017. She was the inaugural Chair of the QRL's People and Culture Committee and is currently the QRL Audit and Risk Committee chair.

Dr Gregory Cox

Dr Gregory Cox is a domain leader for sports nutrition with extensive dietetic experience in industry, community, clinical, university and sports sectors. Dr Cox is a highly regarded professional sports nutrition consultant and lecturer with more than 60 peer reviewed journal articles, five books, and 25 book chapters on sports nutrition related topics.

Dr Cox is a Fellow and has served as a Board member of Sports Dietitians Australia. In 2016, he represented the Australian Olympic Committee Nutrition Lead for the Rio Olympic Games.

Dr Bridie Kean

Bridie is a two-time Paralympian competing in wheelchair basketball. In 2012, she captained the Paralympic Silver Medallist team, the Australian Gliders, at the Paralympic Games in London. Bridie later took up canoeing and won gold at the IVF Vaa World Elite and Club Sprints Championships.

Bridie is also a public health academic at the University of the Sunshine Coast and focuses her research and practice on creating equitable access to all levels of sport and physical activity for people with a disability.

Shayne Gilbert

Shayne is a Senior Investment Manager at Shaw and Partners Limited and a founding Board Member of Share the Dignity. He is a passionate rugby, athletics and cricket coach, a father of four children and a former teacher. He was also the Vice President of Parkinson's Queensland from 2013 to 2015.

Shayne has extensive experience working in the financial services industry. His expertise will be important as the QAS ensures its increased funding is invested wisely and explores new funding sources.

Laurie Malone

Laurie is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder at VALD Performance. VALD Performance is a Brisbane-based company leading the way globally in human measurement technology, providing innovative human-measurement technology to more than 1,000 of the world's most elite sporting teams (including the QAS), universities and Defence departments.

Executive

Andrew Hopper, Director-General

In September 2022, Andrew took on the role of Director-General, Tourism Innovation and Sport (DTIS) and is leading the government’s key objectives to grow and strengthen the state’s visitor economy, innovation agenda and participation in sport and recreation.

Andrew joined DTIS in late 2021 as the Deputy Director-General, Tourism Recovery, Olympic Engagement and Legacy, with the focus of championing Queensland’s visitor economy, bringing the Tourism Industry Reference Panel’s Action Plan for Tourism Recovery to life and working in lockstep with Tourism and Events Queensland as well as industry.

Prior to taking up this role with DTIS, Andrew has spent over six years in executive roles in the Northern Territory, most recently as the Deputy CEO in the Department of Industry, Tourism and Trade, leading the teams at Tourism NT (including StudyNT), Screen Territory and Liquor and Gaming and Racing.

With an extensive background leading high performing teams in the tourism, major events, entertainment, sport and cultural industries in Australia and internationally, Andrew has led teams to deliver an increase in visitation, industry investment, successful major events, and projects. Having worked in both the public and private sectors, Andrew is well versed in working with stakeholders to find new ways of working together while overcoming roadblocks along the way.

Chelsea Warr – QAS Chief Executive

Chelsea is an experienced leader in driving transformational change within high performance sporting organisations. As leader of the department’s high performance sport unit, QAS, Chelsea and her team are responsible for supporting the performance of Queensland’s most talented athletes to perform on the world stage such as Olympic and Paralympic Games, World Championships and Commonwealth Games.

Prior to her position as Chief Executive, Chelsea held the position of Director of the Great Britain High Performance system, where her primary objective was to drive the strategic development of the high performance system to ensure sustained medal winning success. Over a 20-year period, she played several leadership roles enabling Great Britain to progress from 36th on the medal table in Atlanta 1996, to second in the world by Rio 2016.

Chelsea and the QAS team’s vision is “Inspiring Extraordinary Sporting Success” especially within the context of the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.