Long standing board member Diana Taylor will assume the role of Vice President in 2020. This will mark the first time in the club’s 160 year history that a woman has held the role of Vice President.
Diana joined the board in 2010 and has been a key driver of the Cats success over the past decade and is chair of the club’s corporate governance committee.
“Serving the Geelong Football Club over the past 10 years as a director has been a huge honour, and I look forward to continuing with this work while moving into the role of vice president.
“Our board will continue to drive the club forward as we strive to succeed both on and off the field. While we have enjoyed a sustained period of success, we need to ensure that we continue to move the club forward in an ever-changing business and football environment.”
Diana is a qualified lawyer, company director and consultant. Diana operates her own consulting business in the areas of workplace relations, governance, leadership and sport across a wide range of sectors, and on a part-time basis is the General Counsel for Netball Australia.
Diana is also a Victorian Telstra Business Woman of the Year Award Winner (Private & Corporate), Chair of both Anam Cara House Geelong and GOTAFE, and is a board member on the Geelong Authority and the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Trust.
A lifelong and passionate Geelong supporter, Diana was born and raised in Geelong. She attended Morongo Girls’ College and then moved on to study at Deakin University’s law school at the Waurn Ponds campus. Diana graduated with a law degree with honours and an arts degree before undertaking her articles of clerkship with national law firm, Clayton Utz, in Melbourne.
Diana enjoyed 10 years experience in football as an administrator and member of a number of tribunals before joining the board.
She was the first woman appointed to the Victorian Football League tribunal and the Victorian Football League appeals board. In November 2007, Diana was elected as the President of the Western Region Football League, one of the largest metropolitan football leagues in Melbourne with over 7,200 senior and junior players. In doing so, she became the first woman to lead a senior men’s Melbourne metropolitan football competition.
Also during 2007, Diana created the Women’s Football Foundation within the Western Region Football League, an organisation whose objectives were to encourage and promote the role of women in football.
