Top high performance strategist coming home

Friday, 4 May 2012

Top high performance strategist coming home

High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ) has attracted one of New Zealand’s leading high performance strategists back home, after several years spent working with the Australian rowing squad in Canberra.

Kiwi Andrew Matheson will move back to New Zealand later this year to take up the new role of General Manager Performance and Strategic Investment with HPSNZ, the organisation responsible for supporting this country’s elite athletes.

HPSNZ Chief Executive Alex Baumann says he’s thrilled they’ve been able to attract someone of Matheson’s calibre back home.

``New Zealanders working in high performance sport are often highly sought after. We’ve lost some of our best coaches and high performance directors to jobs overseas over the years,” he says.

``The establishment of High Performance Sport New Zealand and the Government’s increased investment in high performance sport means we’re able to take the high performance system to a new level, and attract someone of Andrew’s experience and expertise back home to work for us.”

Matheson was part of the New Zealand Men’s Coxed Four which won a silver medal at the 1995 World Rowing Championships. He was High Performance Manager for Rowing New Zealand, based in Cambridge, before moving to Australia in late 2008 to take up the role of National High Performance Director at the Australian Institute of Sport/Rowing Australia’s National Rowing Centre of Excellence.

Matheson says working in Australia with the rowing programme has been a fantastic experience.

`` I’ve got a lot of respect for the people I’ve worked with in Australia and the progress we’ve made. But when the opportunity came along to return to my home country to play a significant part in an organisation that’s already making headway in high performance sport, I leapt at it,’’ he says.

Baumann says Matheson has both proven experience in leading and driving high performance sport programmes, and the strategic skills necessary for the role.

``Andrew will drive our investment approach to ensure we produce more Kiwi winners, and he’ll work strategically with national sport organisations to develop world-leading high performance programmes, which enable our athletes and coaches to perform at their best.’’

Matheson will continue in his role in Australia until after the 2012 London Olympic Games.

``We’ve been happy to work with Andrew so that he can see through his commitments to the athletes there, and then look forward to him joining us at HPSNZ in mid-August,’’ Baumann says.

Ends

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