Northern Business Achievement Awards - March 2025

Join us at the Northern Business Achievement Awards breakfast on Thursday, 6 March 2025.

On the eve of International Women’s Day, we are honoured to welcome Caroline Carnegie, Managing Director of Melbourne Victory Football Club, as our keynote speaker. Caroline’s leadership in this industry is a testament to the power of resilience, vision, and breaking barriers. Her journey exemplifies the empowerment of women in leadership, the importance of fostering equality, and inspiring the next generation of women to pursue their ambitions with confidence and determination.

Topic: Melbourne Victory: Sport, Business and Community.

About the speaker: 

Caroline began her role as Managing Director of Melbourne Victory in May 2021. She is also a Director and Company Secretary of the club, having first joined the Board in 2015 and a director and secretary of the Club’s not-for-profit Academy. MVFC is one of Australia’s premier football clubs, boasting four A-League Championships (and three Premierships), two FFA Cup titles and a seven-time qualifier for the ACL. Along with the A-League men, the Club is proud to compete in the NPL and A-League women's competitions and support the Afghan Women's National Team (AWT). Caroline was also an inaugural member of the FA (Football Australia) Women’s Council (WC) and represented the WC on the New Leagues Working Group, designed to agree and recommend the structure for the Australian professional football leagues moving forward (which took shape from the 2022/23 A-Leagues seasons.

Caroline has expertise in mergers, acquisitions and disposals (including trade sales, management buyouts and distressed sales), contract preparation and negotiation, asset sales and IT outsourcing agreements across various industry sectors. Caroline also has a sports law practice, which entails advising many sporting organisations on their league participation arrangements, sponsorships, governance programs and more and has acted for many premier sporting organisations. Furthermore, Caroline provides extensive advice to not-for-profit entities about corporate governance and structuring and was the primary legal advisor to the Australian Professional Leagues regarding unbundling from the FA and the capital raise project undertaken with Silver Lake, which resulted in a US$100m investment into football in this country.