Re-imagining Asia's sports and entertainment destinations #SAS24

With over fifteen years of robust experience in the New Zealand Sport & Recreation sector, Brian is a seasoned operator and trusted adviser to a wide array of organizations within Auckland’s sport and recreation community. Brian’s professional journey is highlighted by a significant six-year tenure as the Chief Executive of Trusts Stadium delivering the 2007 Netball World Championships, 2011 Rugby World Cup involvement, international Boxing title fights and a range of events in between. Brian currently serves as the Chief Executive of Eventfinda Stadium while maintaining his own Not-For-Profit consultancy business.

Throughout the Covid-19 Brian led one of the few Stadiums that was able to continue operating with the blessing of the New Zealand Government which ultimately led to the Stadium marking an operating profit.

Throughout his career, Brian has been responsible for managing various facilities and has been a pillar of support for several clubs and societies during their most challenging times. He has effectively led multiple organizational transformations, further establishing himself as a transformative leader in the sector.

In his senior executive and consultancy roles, Brian has handled not-for-profit asset management, capital programme development, and strategic planning and implementation for sports and societies. His roles have required expertise in organizational planning, delivery, and governance. Furthermore, he has been a coach and mentor for individuals at both Board and Management levels.

Brian has held board positions in diverse industries including tourism, events, and community social support. Currently, he is the elected Chair of the Wiri Licensing Trust in Wiri, South Auckland. With experience in roles ranging from Operations Manager to Chief Executive and Chair, Brian possesses the ability to identify critical linkages that are vital for success in various organizational roles. His understanding and ability to transition seamlessly between different roles make him pivotal to driving organizational success.

With a consistent record of leadership and strategic contributions, Brian continues to influence and drive initiatives within the sport and recreation community in Auckland and beyond. He offers a wealth of seasoned expertise and insights, which have been honed through years of hands-on experience and strategic oversight in the field.

John Sharkey is a visionary leader and the Project Director of Kai Tak Sports Park, one of the largest sports infrastructure projects in the world. With an outstanding track record, he leads a diverse team of experts in the design development, construction, and pre-opening phases of the project. Collaborating closely with renowned design, build and operate partners, Sharkey ensures a seamless integration of sports, retail, and entertainment, offering visitors an immersive and unparalleled experience.

Previously, as Executive Vice President, Europe at ASM Global, the world-leading venue management company, Sharkey spearheaded the business across Europe as part of the global leadership team. He delivered successful new venues in Aberdeen and Hull, launched venue project developments in Manchester, Stockholm and London and forged new venue operating and commercial partnerships in the UK and across continental Europe. As CEO of Scottish Exhibition Centre before that, he delivered the funding, construction and operation of the SSE Hydro Arena in Glasgow in 2013 which has since become one of the world’s leading arenas.

Additionally, he made significant strides in advancing the prestigious Kai Tak Sports Park project from PQQ through to successful tender award, further demonstrating his expertise in managing multi-faceted infrastructure ventures.

Sharkey’s unwavering dedication to gold standard venue management has cemented his status as a key industry leader. His genuine commitment to excellence and his adeptness in navigating complex challenges makes him an invaluable asset to Kai Tak Sports Park and the industry as a whole. With his exceptional leadership and passion, John Sharkey continues to shape the future of the sports and entertainment venue sector.

Amie Edser is an experienced project architect with over 15 years’ industry experience. She has been Project Lead for several of Populous’ major projects, including the Main Stadium at the Kai Tak Sports Park development in Hong Kong, which is a 50,000+ seat, fully air conditioned facility. Following this, Amie went was Project Lead for the Jamsil MICE and Sports Park project in Seoul, South Korea. Her role on the project involved leading the Master planning, Ballpark and Hotel Buildings project teams. Both projects entailed detailed coordination with client and consultants both in person and remotely across Asia, along with internal coordination of the project teams across the APAC region.

Amie leads Populous’ Integrated Management System work across the Asia-Pacific, which includes Quality Assurance, Occupational Health and Safety and Environmental Design principals. This role entails ensuring all projects across our offices follow a set of guidelines and procedures set out by the team, and ensuring the work produced by the company meets Sustainable Design requirements.

Amie enjoys working collaboratively with different disciplines within the architectural industry. She has an immense passion to travel globally and immerses herself in different cultures and new types of buildings and designs.

Engaged in consulting on strategy and planning, business improvement, system conception and procurement support, mainly for government offices. From 2013, he started consulting for sports and entertainment industry. He promotes consulting such as planning support for new businesses and services.

His references include:

• Project director of the planning concept of a sport complex facility for a national university.
• Project director of the planning ICT Strategy for new arena.
• Project director of a certain independent administrative office’s lottery refund system & infrastructure renovation project .
• Project director of “New Athlete discovery” System construction and maintenance.
• Project director of a feasibility study for introducing new services (sports-related) at a major game company.
• Project director of a feasibility study on the introduction of new overseas services (sports-related) in a major facility operation business.
• Project director of a joint project with a major entertainment company to develop and commercialize an application that visualizes dance skills.

He specializes in service development that emphasizes “empathy” and with the concept “Proposals are meaningless if they cannot be realized“.

As a former Olympian (1984 Los Angeles) and Asian Games medalist, Jin Teik’s illustrious 32-years professional career spanned both private and public sectors in multiple industries, with residence in USA, China, and Singapore. He is a trusted, people-centric senior leader who specializes in business turnaround, mega project ideation-startup-operations, place making in mixed use developments, data- driven digital transformation, and complex stakeholder management (including public-private-people partnerships).

between 1999 and 2019, he led the conceptualisation, launch, operations, & management of Singapore Sports Hub – the world’s largest & most complex PPP (public private partnership) social infrastructure DBFO project across 35 hectares. A pioneer in the mixed use development for a sports entertainment lifestyle city with world class facilities (programming, event services, venue/facility management, retail operations, etc). By end Year 4 2018 & working with a complex network of stakeholders (B2G, B2B, B2C), we delivered 220 events & attracted 3 million attendees/users with a total of 15 million footfall.

Prior to his Sports Hub role, he spent six years as CEO of Sport Singapore where he implemented the national blueprint for Sporting Singapore across 3 thrusts, 6 targets, 40 strategies; thereby delivering national economic returns (GDP contribution) from S$300 million (2000) to S$1 billion (2008) and resulting in Singapore winning: 1) Gold for Sports City Award @International Sports Events Management Awards 2010; 2) Runners-Up for Ultimate Sports City Award @Sport Accord Convention 2010.

Today, Jin Teik operates his own consultancy business, namely in board advisory and strategic business management, after serving as CEO at American Ethane Capital, Singapore Sports Hub, Hyflux China, Singapore Sports Council, and other senior leadership roles in National Starch (Ingredion) and DuPont Company. Presently, he is Regional Managing Director for Ascention Consulting, Asia Pacific’s leading Clean Data experts in Data Management, Strategy, Culture, and Enablement.

Other roles include: Chairman & Non-Executive Director (Approved Technology Solutions, UK), Senior Advisor (Xctuality, ASICS Asia, eSports Players League, Singapore Rowing), and Board Member (Beyond Sport, Republic Polytechnic, Singapore Science Centre, Health Promotion Board).

Jin Teik has an MBA & BSc Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University, USA. He attended Executive Education classes at Wharton Business School (University of Pennsylvania, USA), Kellogg Business School (Northwestern University, USA), 6th Leaders in Administration Program (Civil Service College, Public Service Division, Singapore), and Advanced Leaders Program-Future China (Business China, Nanyang Business School Singapore.)

In over 20 years with Populous, Richard has run major projects in the UK, Portugal, Italy, New Zealand and Australia, and consequently, has significant experience in delivering large scale, highly complex buildings. Richard has led the design teams on some of the world’s greatest public architect projects including the Melbourne and Olympic Parks Redevelopment, Wembley Stadium, the London 2012 Olympic Master Plan, ICC Sydney, Eden Park in New Zealand and Soccer City in Johannesburg. 

A Senior Principal and Director of the firm, Richard is currently based in Hong Kong. As Principal in Charge for the Kai Tak Sports Park, he leads the design team transforming the 28-hectare former airport site into an urban oasis, a new destination which integrates high quality sports venues with retail, wellness, recreational and community spaces.

Richard is focused on delivering unique experiences to people through fan engagement and interaction, and exploring how venues become part of the urban fabric of the cities and communities they sit within.

Matt Beyer is the CEO and co-founder of EASL, where he is responsible for overall strategy, operations, league structure and relationships with FIBA, leagues and teams. He has 15 years’ experience working in China and other Asian markets, mostly in sport, but also in PR and government relations in Beijing.

In Fall 2023, EASL is launching its first, full season of home-and-away fixtures, featuring the top teams from B.LEAGUE (Japan), Korean Basketball League (KBL), Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) and P. LEAGUE+ (Chinese Taipei).

Prior to EASL, Matt founded ALTIUS, China’s largest basketball agency, in 2012. ALTIUS represented a commanding share of the CBA’s top athletes. He is the only foreigner ever to have sat the Chinese Sports Agent Certification Exam and the only non-Chinese, government-certified sports agent in the country.

Matt is fluent in Mandarin and has honors degrees in Chinese Literature, East Asian Studies and Journalism ​from University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Liam LLiam started his career at China Olympic Square Group, where he was responsible for providing design and operational consulting services for sports venues in various cities in China.

During this period, he also participated in the planning and execution of the Asian Badminton Elite Tour. He later worked for Lander Sports Group, one of the most valuable listed sports companies in China at the time. During this period, many sports real estate projects were developed. Later, Liam worked for Greentown China and began to participate in some of the city’s old renovation projects, such as old factories and old commercial complexes.

Liam, now an independent consultant, hopes to activate a large number of old sports centers in China. He is also a columnist for China’s largest sports self-media.

A global executive with more than 25 years of experience as a CEO, he specializes in delivering stadiums and temporary infrastructure for the world’s most significant sporting events. Notably, he led the successful delivery of seven new stadiums with a total seating capacity of approximately 300,000 for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia and managed the overlay for official sites for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

In his most recent role, he served as the Technical Services Director for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. Previously, he was the Chief Executive Officer at Sport-Engineering in Moscow, where he was responsible for building and managing FIFA World Cup facilities.

With a technical and engineering background, he is an expert in meeting FIFA requirements and specializes in managing large-scale infrastructure projects. He also has deep knowledge of the specifics of clients’ work in large-scale infrastructure projects. His track record of delivering these complex projects within tight timelines is evidence of his capability to assume the highest level of responsibility.

His strong leadership qualities, coupled with his ability to empower teams and adapt to rapidly changing environments, set the strategic direction for all his endeavors. At the core of his success is his talent for building and managing relationships with a diverse range of stakeholders, including government officials, contractors, and clients.

Darren is ASM Global’s Executive Director of Kai Tak Sports Park in Hong Kong. Expected to be completed in the second half of 2024, the 28  hectare precinct comprises a 50,000 seat stadium, 10,000 capacity arena, 5,000 seat public sports ground, 66,000 m2 of retail space, and public open spaces. Darren leads the team who will ultimately operate this US$3.8bn project.

Prior to his current role Darren was a consultant for the New South Wales Government, leading the business case for the redevelopment of Stadium Australia (now known as Accor Stadium) in Sydney and prior to that as an operations adviser for the development of Bankwest Stadium in Western Sydney.

Until July 2018 Darren spent nearly five years as Chief Executive of Vbase, manager of Christchurch’s leading venues including Horncastle Arena, AMI Stadium, Hagley Oval, Air Force Museum Wigram, and the Christchurch Town Hall.

Before moving to Vbase Darren spent seven years in Dunedin, firstly working as the Chief Executive of the trust established to masterplan and build Forsyth Barr Stadium in time for Rugby World Cup 2011.  Latterly he was the Chief Executive of Dunedin Venues, operator of the stadium as well as the Dunedin Centre and Town Hall.

Janice joined Populous in 2019, fulfilling her aspirations to work within a global firm specialising in innovative sports architecture and design. Prior to joining Populous, she gained over five years of design coordination experience in various retail, transport orientated development and mixed-use projects across China.

Based in Hong Kong, Janice is currently working on the world class entertainment facilities of Kai Tak Sports Park. As a UK Registered Architect, she has been the Design Lead for the Construction Phase of the South Precinct along with a member of the Design Development team for the 50,000 seat Main Stadium. The Main Stadium is an International standard facility with a retractable roof and a flexible and transformable pitch system capable in hosting wide range of international sports events like Rugby 7’s and concerts without being affected by different weather conditions.

Janice has personal interests in public infrastructure projects and master planning, Janice has found her passion for architecture, while also volunteering her time to renovate a community project in Hong Kong. She completed her Masters in Architecture at University College London – Bartlett School of Architecture, where she also gained her Bachelor of Architecture.

Having joined the Hong Kong, China Rugby in 2003 as the Community Rugby Manager, Robbie assumed the role of CEO in May 2017. Prior to the Union, he spent 11 years in the Hong Kong Police Force, where he served in a number of roles including presenter of the “Police Report” TV show.

He has a MA (Oxon) and completed a PGC in Sports & Recreation Management at HKU Space in 2001. He is a Director of the local charity Operation Breakthrough and was instrumental in setting up the HKCR Community Foundation – Rugby For Good, both of which use sport as a medium to tackle social issues. He was awarded a MBE in 2019 for services to philanthropy and UK-Hong Kong relations.