Ross Oakley

Playing career

Oakley attended Wesley College, Melbourne and began his senior VFL footballing career with the St Kilda Football Club in 1962. He went on to score 38 goals in 62 games. His career was marred by unfortunate knee injuries; the first came in 1965 in St Kilda's semi-final victory, which meant Oakley missed the Grand Final. He suffered déjà vu in 1966, missing not only the Grand Final, but St Kilda's first VFL premiership. Following a further injury before the start of the 1967 season, Oakley retired at the age of 24.

Executive career

Oakley was appointed Chairman and CEO of the then troubled Victorian Football League in 1986, taking over the role from Jack Hamilton, remaining in the role until the end of the 1996 season. Over the decade that followed Ross oversaw the transformation of the VFL into the Australian Football League. Under Oakley's guidance, five new clubs from outside Victoria — Brisbane Bears and West Coast Eagles (1986), Adelaide (1990), Fremantle (1994) and Port Adelaide (1996) — joined the more professional, national competition. In 1993, he oversaw the transfer of administrative control of the league from the clubs to the AFL Commission, as well as the formal transfer of control of the sport as a whole from the National Australian Football Council to the AFL Commission.

During his time with the VFL/AFL, he was deeply involved in mergers, as his administration believed that the number of Victorian clubs, many of which were in a poor financial state, was unsustainable. Victorian clubs were offered incentive packages of up to $6M to merge during his tenure. The only merger completed during his tenure was between Fitzroy and Brisbane Bears, but proposed mergers between Fitzroy and Footscray in 1989 and Melbourne and Hawthorn in 1996 came very close to fruition as well. However, the merger years caused great off-field discord among clubs and fans, and the merger strategy was abandoned after Oakley was succeeded by Wayne Jackson as CEO at the end of 1996.

In 2009 Oakley was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame as an administrator. His previous career included management of insurance companies (e.g. AAMI), and he was chief executive of Royal Insurance (which may have led to media jibes that he was an "insurance salesman").

Oakley's appointment as Melbourne Rebels' CEO was announced 9 September 2010, when the Rebels also said the franchise was to join forces with the Victorian Rugby Union to build rugby union in Victoria, at both professional and amateur levels. Oakley became CEO to fill the gap left by the resignation of Rebels' founding CEO Brian Waldron who resigned in early 2010 in the wake of the Melbourne Storm salary cap scandal.

Oakley holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Melbourne Business School. He is a former Adjunct Professor at Deakin University's Faculty Business and Law, where he also lectured.

Board positions

Ross Oakley is a former Chairman of Royal Australian Holdings Ltd, Royal Life Insurance Australia Ltd, and the State Training Board of Victoria. He is listed as Chairman of the Get Going Sport Foundation, and he has served as director on the boards of AAMI Ltd and Tisdall Wines. Between 1997 and 2001 Oakley was a director of Harris Scarfe Holdings Limited.