Brett Elliot, Group Managing Director of Kookaburra Sport, worked for some big names in the UK before taking on the UK branch of the family business. He ran Kookaburra UK for 15 years before moving back to Australia to run the global business.
Kookaburra has a strong presence in the UK as the company was an official supplier for the 2012 Olympics. ”The London Olympics approached us and said they were considering using a blue pitch, which was a first for International hockey. So we worked with them to develop a florescent yellow hockey ball.” We have been supplying the Olympic hockey balls since the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, and we have supplied the hockey ball for all Olympics and all international hockey events since that date. That was primarily on the back of my uncle and father that invented and developed the Dimple hockey ball.
Brett returned to Australia to bring Kookaburra Sport’s focus on the growing international markets, particularly in Asia. One of the primary jobs for me is to take the brand throughout the subcontinent. In the past few years we have opened up a distributorship in Pakistan, Bangladesh, we’ve been working with Sri Lanka, and we’ve started up a business in India.
There’s been a significant push in those countries, but in addition to that we have been working hard in some of the existing international markets that we have and drawing a lot more focus on them. So we’ve been working closely with our customers in South Africa and moved ourselves up to be the leading brand in South Africa; and the same in New Zealand. There are other emerging markets in cricket at the moment in the northern states of America and Canada, so we are also working at trying to develop our product and brand in those markets.