Nelson said returning to rugby league felt like a natural homecoming.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m thrilled and honoured to be entrusted with the role of chief executive of NZRL [New Zealand Rugby League].<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing part of delivering the 2017 Rugby League World Cup in Aotearoa was a career highlight. While I\u2019ve continued to work across sport since then, rugby league has always held a special place for me, so this in many ways feels like a homecoming,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am a huge believer in the power of sport to change lives for the better, and that sits at the heart of rugby league\u2019s \u2018More Than a Game\u2019 kaupapa. Rugby league\u2019s greatest strength has always been, and always will be, its people, and I look forward to working together to shape the future of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
NZRL chair Justin Leydesdorff said the appointment panel was thrilled by the calibre of candidates for the role.<\/p>\n
\u201cAndrea brings an incredibly rare combination of strategic leadership, operational delivery and authentic passion for rugby league,\u201d Leydesdorff said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s worked at the highest levels of governance and commercial sport and understands what it takes to grow organisations in complex environments. But equally as important to the code, she demonstrated a deep understanding of community sport and people.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted a leader who could sit across the table from the biggest decision-makers in international rugby league, but who would also happily pick up a tea towel at a local club on the East Coast. Andrea is that person.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nelson said returning to rugby league felt like a natural homecoming. \u201cI\u2019m thrilled and honoured to be entrusted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[75544,694,52371,806,8474,3937,3938,14731,91,117,111,139,69,6327,213,72395,102,80],"class_list":["post-421648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-andrea","tag-announces","tag-appointment","tag-as","tag-chapter","tag-chief","tag-executive","tag-league","tag-nelson","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-ushered","tag-with","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}