Six months since joining the Victoria Racing Club, chief executive Kylie Rogers still has a lot of questions to answer but says she can now see her way through the clouds which had enveloped Flemington.
The cards were firmly on the table when Kylie Rogers walked into the Victoria Racing Club chief executive’s role on September 1.
The final 2023/24 financial figure of a $24.2 million loss might not have yet been published, but Australia’s largest racing club knew it was well in the red when Rogers began in her new job.
It was a fifth straight year of operational losses, totalling $87 million. The Club Stand, built, unfortunately in terms of timing, on the eve of a global pandemic, had saddled the VRC with considerable debt. There were other issues as well, including flatlining revenue and spiralling costs.
When the annual report was announced in November, Rogers’ profile was kept out of it. It was chairman Neil Wilson who was front and centre. He acknowledged that the former AFL executive’s “fresh perspectives” were crucial to the future prosperity of the VRC.
Rogers’ situation was not that dissimilar to her old AFL boss Gillon McLachlan at Tabcorp. The trash was being taken out, giving her the context for sweeping change.
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