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Matt Fulton became CEO at SportWest in February, after six years with WestCycle. He took over from long-serving Rob Thompson, who was head of WA Sports Federation for 14 years and led sport’s peak body through the transition to become SportWest.

“Where SportWest is placed at the moment is very exciting,” Matt said. “While there are challenges out there in our industry, overall I’m seeing a lot of enthusiasm for where we can go. Thanks to all the work Rob did, we have a great opportunity to move forward with new context and direction, a new Minister and a new Director General at DLGSC.”

Over the next year, SportWest will be actively focusing on four areas. Firstly, it aims to further strengthen the sense of industry. Matt hopes by encouraging sports to work together and share information and resources, everyone will benefit from the experience of their colleagues in both the smaller and bigger sports.

Secondly, SportWest hopes to create a closer bond and better connections with the sport and peak bodies.

Providing more services to the industry is next on the list, and something Matt says SportWest is perfectly placed to do. While the ‘how’ is still in the works, Matt is keen to create a way for sports to have access to shared services such as lawyers, HR people or graphic designers. When one sport might not be able to justify or afford employing an extra person, several sports banding together might be able to provide enough work for a specialist.

SportWest is in the process of securing more space within their offices, which Matt hopes will become a sports hub – potentially for smaller sports and some of these shared resources.

“Finally, we want to deliver some industry-strengthening projects which are timely and relevant,” he said. “For example, social return on investment.”

“One of the challenges in our industry is to be able to articulate our benefit, past just the obvious. We’ve engaged some people to do that work with us.”

SportWest has also recently welcomed new members to its team – communications and events manager Steve Glover and administration manager Fran Jones. Familiar face Matt Bamford has a new title as member and partnership manager.

For more information visit the SportWest website.