In late July 2013, the Queensland state government announced the appointment of Darren Condon as the CEO of the newly formed Queensland All Codes Racing Industry Board, which trades as Racing Queensland. This appointment was part of Premier Campbell Newmans commitment to rejuvenate racing and establish a new governance structure for the industry.
Before taking his current position, Darren had been the COO of Brisbane Racing Club for four and a half years. He brings a wealth of knowledge and passion to the role as the formation of the Queensland All Codes Racing Industry Board provided a fresh start for racing in the state, creating greater transparency for the industry and its individual boards for the three racing codes.
According to Darren, the racing industry in Queensland had been through a chequered history and needed a change in image and governance. “We had a commission of enquiry shortly after our start into the previous organisation and there is still a fair bit of work to do about changing the perception of our business and pulling the three codes together. They had been operating together but hadn’t really been merged into one entity. So pulling them altogether and moving forward so that all those codes feel a part of the industry and equally treated has been a pretty significant challenge.”
Weve taken an approach of really promoting the sport and getting back to driving that and growing participation. Its fair to say that were in the early stages of it, but the marketing focus has been about really driving the stars of the sport, promoting them, and promoting the sport to its own participants so that they can be ambassadors for the sport. “We’re seeing some positive signs across the industry of people within the industry being advocates for it. Additionally, we’re starting to get some traction in the external marketplace around our stars and heroes of the sport, which would have been forgotten for a fairly long period.”