KPMG partner Shelley Reys appointed to Brisbane Olympics board
The board of the Brisbane Olympics organising committee has been finalised ahead of the ten-year countdown to the 2032 Games, with Shelley Reys among its appointments.
The KPMG partner has been appointed among a group of five independent directors to the Board of the Brisbane Organising Committee for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games (OCOG). The quintet, including Darwin-born former Dow CEO Andrew Liveris as president, join sixteen other directors to round out the final composition of the board.
A Djiribul woman of Far North Queensland, Reys has served for almost thirty years as the CEO of Arrilla Indigenous Consulting, which provides cultural competency advisory and in 2016 entered into a joint venture with KPMG – a deal which saw Reys become the Big Four firm’s first ever partner of Indigenous descent.
Reys also is a member of KPMG’s twelve-strong national board in Australia.
In addition to her consultancy work, Reys has been a long-standing public advocate for Indigenous advancement, and was in 2001 appointed as the inaugural co-chair of Reconciliation Australia (KPMG published its 2021-2025 RAP last year) She also served on the board of the National Australia Day Council, and was instrumental in Parliament’s 2008 apology to the Stolen Generations.
Reys now joins the 21-member OCOG alongside Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, Australian Olympic Committee president and IOC vice president John Coates, Paralympics Australia president Jock O’Callaghan, and a host of politicians, business leaders and former Olympians, including Indigenous 100 metres Australian sprint-record holder Patrick Johnson.
Palaszczuk, who also serves as Minister for the Olympics, said that the board reflects a breadth and depth of experience that also has its heart firmly in Queensland. “This will be the biggest single transformational event in a generation. Our job is to honour the commitments I made to the IOC but also provide a lasting legacy for our state, and I am confident that is exactly what we will achieve.”
Having previously spent twenty years as a partner at PwC, O’Callaghan added that Brisbane 2032 was already setting a new standard. “I am pleased to see the diversity of the Board, with representatives advocating for our First Nations People, and voices championing accessibility, inclusion, and the regions to ensure tangible and meaningful conversations are had at the table.”
Meanwhile, KPMG played a role in initially helping to secure Brisbane’s successful bid, commissioned by the Queensland Department of Tourism, Innovation and Sport to conduct an analysis of the Games’ potential economic, social and environmental impacts and benefits. The firm concluded a potential $17.6 billion boon to the Australian economy over a period of twenty years.
