Natalie Truong (EY) appointed to national board of Pride Cup

Now entering its second decade of pushing for greater sports diversity & inclusion, LGBTIQ+ organisation Pride Cup has welcomed EY’s Natalie Truong to its board of directors.

Last year appointed as EY’s chief marketing officer for the Oceania region, Natalie Truong has now joined the board of Pride Cup, which promotes LGBTIQ+ sporting participation in Australia.

Based out of Melbourne, Truong joins former PwC manager and diversity & inclusion lead Angus Lade as a member of the board among other prominent figures, with the Big Four firm also serving as one of the organisation’s gold partners.

Established in 2014, Pride Cup’s origins trace back to a rainbow-decorated Aussie Rules match held by the Yarra Glen Football Netball Club to demonstrate solidarity with teammate Jason Ball after the young country player publicly came out as gay, which drew significant media attention at the time.

The concept has since been adopted by the AFL and other national sporting comps, with an annual Pride Game having been held between St Kilda and Sydney since 2016.

Rather than a single fixture, Pride Cup supports sports competitions in a wide array of codes to host their own events, with more than 500 clubs across Australia having gotten involved in the effort to make participation more inclusive for LGBTIQ+ players, fans and officials. Still, while the organisation has made great strides since its inception, its own data suggests that just 6% of young LGBTIQ+ Australians play sport due to persistent homophobia.

“Sport has always been a big part of my life, so I am excited about the opportunity to collaborate with an outstanding group of individuals working at the forefront of promoting inclusivity, diversity, and equality,” Truong stated. “In a world where sport holds immense power to unite people, the work that Pride Cup does is truly transformative, and I’m eager to play a role in making a positive impact, both within the organisation and broader community.”

Previously a partner and CMO for Asia, the Middle East & Africa at human capital consultancy Mercer out of Hong Kong, Truong joined EY in Melbourne last year as part of a shake-up of the Big Four’s regional comms team. Earlier, she held senior marketing, CX and digital strategy roles at the Bank of Melbourne and ANZ, and also spent a year at Chimaera Capital, which was co-founded by fellow Pride Cup board member Rochelle Pattison.

Other members on the board with an advisory background include chair Holly Ranson, a director of the Port Adelaide Football Club and founder of leadership development firm Emergent; deputy chair Karen Skinner, chief strategic initiatives officer at New Zealand government agency Callaghan Innovation; and Angus Lade, who spent close to five years at PwC prior to his current role as culture & people experience manager at Commonwealth Bank.

Truong will bring specific experience in sports diversity & inclusion, having also spent a year as a volunteer strategic marketing director for the first ever international Gay Games event hosted in Asia, which were finally held in Hong Kong late last year after a twelve-month delay due to Covid and related organisational issues. She further serves as an advisory board member of RMIT University’s executive program, where she completed an MBA in 2014.