MICHELLE MORRIS
Executive Director & Principal
Michelle is an Executive Director and Principal at MI, and a strategic thinker with a passion for sustainability and innovation. Over the course of her 30-year career she has developed enduring connections and experience across a wide range of organisations in sport and major events.
Michelle has an appreciation of sport and event strategy from grass roots to the international stage. Michelle’s major event experience was borne from the success of Sydney 2000 and 24 years later she is still heavily embedded in the International mega events industry, seconded to work with the IOC at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and delivering projects for major and mega sporting events globally and nationally.
As a senior leader with 30+ years’ experience in the planning, delivery and operations of major venues and mega events, Michelle has led operational master planning and strategic projects for organising committees, sporting organisations, Olympic Committee’s and Government with specialism in bidding, governance and risk, sustainability and operational planning.
Recent achievements include:
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Panel Member for the Queensland Government B2032 Infrastructure Review – alongside Graham Quirk and Ken Kanovski, providing an independent report to the Queensland Government on the infrastructure delivery program for the Games. This review and subsequent report focused on new and upgraded venues ensuring they deliver value for money and community benefit right across QLD.
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Illawarra Hawks NBL Basketball Franchise – business operations review, business planning and governance.
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Qudos Bank Arena – delivery of a sustainability roadmap to guide decision making for the venue in achieving sustainability goals.
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FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 – risk management and event readiness across operations in Australia and New Zealand.
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ICC T20 World Cup 2022 – integrated planning and project management, delivery of readiness nationally and tournament operations centre oversight.
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UCI Road World Championships 2022 – strategic planning and delivery, integrated planning, readiness and a range of strategic support to the LOC from 2020 – 2022.
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FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022 – strategic planning and delivery, sustainability strategy and implementation plan, and delivery of readiness.
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Strategic planning, technical content development and project managing major event bids, delivering compelling and successful bids to sports and host cities including FIBA Basketball World Cup 2027 – Doha; ICC T20 World Cup 2028 bid for Australia and New Zealand and 2030 Asian Games, Doha.
Prior to joining MI, Michelle was also responsible for securing major events for Victoria at Visit Victoria and developed Victoria’s Regional Events strategy.
She has also been involved in several major event projects spanning from Olympic and Commonwealth Games to World Cups. She delivered a full Venue Selection process across Australia and New Zealand to review and select the venues required to deliver the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 and went on to lead planning and delivery for the tournament. Other roles have included Chief Operations Officer for World Youth Day 2008 Melbourne Office, CEO of the 2004 Commonwealth Youth Games and senior roles within the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games and 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games Organising Committee’s.
Michelle is an active member of VicSport, a Committee Member of the Mordialloc Surf Life Saving Club and on the Board of Squash and Racquetball Victoria. In her spare time she is a busy mother of twins.