Bain veteran Chris Harrop prepares to take over as Tennis Australia chair
Bain & Company advisory partner and company veteran Chris Harrop will be keeping an especially close eye on Wimbledon this year – and not just as a self-described ‘tennis nut’.
Chris Harrop, who has been with Bain & Company for more than three decades, has been tapped to take over as chair of Tennis Australia at the end of the year ahead of the next Australian Open, succeeding fellow Bain veteran Jayne Hrdlicka.
Harrop’s appointment continues Tennis Australia’s close ties with the local consulting industry, and in particular Bain & Company, with much of its board and many of its key executives having previously worked in the sector, including recent recruits.
By all reports, tennis in Australia is in pretty good shape, with this year’s Australian Open having smashed attendance records and drawn a global viewership of almost two billion, which together with the successful introduction of the United Cup and other tournaments on the summer calendar generated over $620 million in economic impact across the country, according to the sports body.
A key driver of the sport’s local renaissance has been Hrdlicka. The Australian Open contributed $565 million of that figure alone, almost double the sum of when Hrdlicka took over as Tennis Australia’s first female chair in 2017, following two decades at Bain & Company and time at Qantas and Jetstar, the latter as CEO. She now moves on as the next chief and saviour of hotel and liquor giant Endeavour.
Chris Harrop
Taking up Hrdlicka’s seat is Harrop, who joined Bain in San Francisco way back in 1993 and has since spent three decades with the consultancy in Sydney, Melbourne and London with a focus on growth strategy, customer experience, and change management in the consumer goods sector, including seven years as head of the firm’s TMT (telecom, media & technology) business for the Asia Pacific.
Harrop, who some local fans may be dismayed to learn will likely be cheering on the likes of Erin Routliffe and Lulu Sun at next year’s open as a proud Kiwi, certainly has his plate full. In addition to his ongoing work as an advisory partner at Bain, the incoming Tennis Australia chair also serves on the board of consultancy SVA, and is the co-founder of venture capital outfit FB10X.
And just like at FB10X and SVA, Harrop will continue to be surrounded by current and former consultants in his new role. Also featuring on the board, which Harrop joined at the end of 2023, is former McKinsey partner Graham Bradley, with the pair evidently supported by nominations committee member Fiona McGauchie, A/NZ country head of global leadership consultancy Egon Zehnder.
Consultant leadership
Tennis Australia’s executive and senior leadership team is also positively stacked with strategy and management advisory alum. Chief commercial and chief strategy & performance officers Cedric Cornelis and Tim Jolley both worked at Bain, while CIO Mohan Aiyaswami and chief tennis officer Tom Larner’s resumes respectively include DXC Technology and PwC.
Meanwhile, TA’s head of strategy, Wakiuru Wohoro, who joined earlier this year, is a former L.E.K. consultant, working alongside tech strategy & architecture head Jennifer Cochrane, who crossed to Tennis Australia in 2023 after a decade and a half at Deloitte, including as Deloitte Digital’s head of technology. Recent strategy lead recruit Christine Liu joined from Kearney.
The list goes on. Tennis Australia digital & technology transformation director Simon Gutman was previously a director at Deloitte and ARQ (now NCS); Ben Stewart, head of technology operations, is the former CTO of Fusion5; and another strategy director, Ash Little, was a partner at Boston Consulting Group before joining TA at the start of last year. You probably get the picture.
Handover
The latter’s inclusion does however raise one point of interest in Tennis Australia’s press release announcing Harrop’s appointment as chair-elect; that Hrdlicka would continue to support him after his ascension “for as long as necessary given the mix of issues underway internationally.” Despite booming local ticket sales and a healthy global audience, the sport currently sits at the cross-roads.
In short, Saudi Arabia now wants a piece of the pie, following the Kingdom’s notable disruption of golf along with an array of other international sports. The issue here is that the oil-rich country is angling to host a mega-bucks Masters tournament to kick off the new season, which starts in January, the same month that Australia traditionally holds court in the build-up to the Oz Open.
The intriguing part of this scenario and the ongoing negotiations over several counter-proposals is that all seven major international tennis bodies recently mutually engaged BCG to come up with some alternative suggestions for the sport’s future. Hrdlicka being ex-Bain was one thing, and she’s a certified loyalist, but Harrop’s ongoing connection to the firm adds some spice to those dynamics
