\u201cOur industry needs bold decisions and a relentless focus on engaging participants, challenging the status quo and growing our fan base,\u201d says Ballesty.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese leaders bring world-class expertise, proven results and a passion for racing that will help secure the future of New Zealand thoroughbred racing.\u201d<\/p>\n
NZTR has looked and felt short on key personnel for some time, with the day-to-day running of the industry and dealing with emergencies such as meeting abandonments leaving little time for putting strategies in place and working on the longer-term issues, most importantly infrastructure.<\/p>\n
NZTR has employed Mitch Lamb as its general manager of racing. Lamb comes from a background at Olybet in Europe, Tabcorp, William Hill and Sky Channel in Australia.<\/p>\n
NZTR says he has a proven record in audience growth, content innovation and building high-performing teams.<\/p>\n
Zac Reynolds has been appointed general manager of brand experience, communications and industry promotion.<\/p>\n
NZTR says Reynolds is \u201ca seasoned marketing leader with nearly two decades in global horse racing and sports wagering, including senior roles at Tabcorp, Sportingbet, Churchill Downs, BlueBet and bet365.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has also founded two successful agencies in the US, delivering innovative, digitally led fan engagement strategies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lamb and Reynolds will move to Cambridge to work from NZTR\u2019s head office.<\/p>\n
Charlotte Mills, who is the head of racing for the Moonee Valley Racing Club, has been appointed as a racing consultant for the next 12 months.<\/p>\n
Mills is highly respected for her work at The Valley and also brings over a decade of executive experience from Racing and Wagering Western Australia (RWWA), where she served as chief racing officer <\/p>\n
and led on animal welfare, racing operations, industry engagement and national strategy.<\/p>\n
The appointments complete a recent management restructure that also includes the appointment of long-time employee Dan Smith as general manager of strategy and transformation and Sam Fursdon <\/p>\n
as general manager of welfare and industry capability.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo further sharpen its racing strategy, we are also establishing a Racing Think Tank to guide programming, the racing calendar and the national pattern,\u201d says Ballesty.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe wider industry will have an opportunity to provide input, with more details to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald\u2019s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world\u2019s biggest horse racing carnivals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOur industry needs bold decisions and a relentless focus on engaging participants, challenging the status quo and growing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[20919,29385,45143,4277,111,43,139,69,45140,384,2170,28472,3512,45141,45142,1529,61,80],"class_list":["post-52789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-australians","tag-believes","tag-implement","tag-key","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-nztr","tag-people","tag-plan","tag-positions","tag-racing","tag-recruits","tag-thoroughbred","tag-three","tag-to","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52789","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=52789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}