Digital transformation with a deadline that could not move.
I was hired to run digital for GC2018 and founded a function that did not exist yet. Three years later there was a team of twelve, a platform stack, and an event that opened on the advertised date in front of the world.
The problem.
Most transformation programs have a quiet escape hatch. A phase two. A roadmap that can be resequenced when things get difficult. A major international sporting event has none of those. The opening ceremony is scheduled years in advance, tickets are sold, broadcast rights are signed, and the world finds out at the same moment whether you were ready.
When I arrived the digital function was essentially a job description. No team, no platforms, no operating model, and a countdown clock that had already started.
Some of the venues were still hard hats and dust.
“One of the best decisions I have made in my career was employing Tracy to manage GC2018 digital.”
What I actually did.
Built the team first. Everything else follows from that, and there is no version of this where one person delivers it.
- Recruited and led a multidisciplinary team of twelve
- Owned web, mobile app, social media, e-news and digital content
- Set the digital strategy across GOLDOC, partners and sponsors
- Worked with agencies, rights holders and Commonwealth Games partners
- Ran it live, through the event itself, at full public scrutiny
We called ourselves the Digi Ninjas. It sounds cheesy written down, and it was the single most useful thing we did for the culture.
“She managed and built a great team to deliver a range of large digital and marketing projects in a very short space of time.”
“The chance to create a full team from scratch, a team where she has fostered support, fun and hard work from day one.”
“Beyond being one of the smartest digital thinkers I have ever worked with, she is an amazing mentor and leader.”
What I took from it.
- A fixed date is a gift. Every organisation I have worked in since has had deadlines that moved, and every one of them delivered more slowly for it.
- Culture is a delivery mechanism, not a perk. A team that likes each other absorbs pressure. A team that doesn't, fractures at exactly the wrong moment.
- Hire for curiosity. Nobody had done this specific job before, so experience mattered less than the willingness to work it out.
- Digital is not a department. It only worked because it was wired into comms, ticketing, venues, partners and broadcast rather than sitting beside them.
And then it was over. Desks cleared, boxes packed, and one of the best teams I have worked with went off in twelve directions.
Digital and AI across 77 councils
Same job, a thousand times more stakeholders and no single definition of done.
NextHavenXR
What happens when the technology you need does not exist yet.