Why a corporate man changed his life to spread the word on understanding disability
Why would a man at the top of his game, indeed a corporate man who had been at the top of two of the most popular sports, basketball and Australian rules football walk away from such lucrative and coveted industries?
For 12 years until 2006, Phil worked in Singapore, Paris. London and then Hong Kong for one of the world’s leading sporting organisations, the National Basketball Association, rising to become its Asia-Pacific chief.
Then he spent a year as the commercial chief of the Hawthorn Football Club. Then he spent three years as the commercial chief of the fashion company set up by his wife Marita.
Then, in early 2010, he became the chief of Wallara, a community organisation based in Dandenong that provides support and services to people with a disability.
What was the turning point, the thing, that triggered the change?
Well, it’s simple – he had become angry and frustrated by the discriminatory and bureaucratic treatment of his daughter’s school just at the moment the Wallara job was advertised.
Source: The Age