Badminton Australia

Badminton Australia Board of Directors

Julie McDonald – President

Julie holds a Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in Accounting & Business law, Diploma of International Marketing & Economics, and is a member of CPA Australia Ltd. Julie has held Accountancy positions, and will bring strong accounting and audit and risk management skills to our organisation. Julie also has strong ties to sport, specifically Badminton, having represented Australia and played internationally, coached, and chaired several committees.

Julie is a BWF Level 1 Certified Coach and has career highlights that include:

  • Four-time Australian Singles Winner, two Doubles and one Mixed Doubles
  • Commonwealth Games Bronze medalist in 1982 (Brisbane) and 1986 (Edinburgh)
  • Winner of numerous international tournaments in Denmark, England and France
  • Winner of the Australian Silver Bowl International (Now called the Australian Badminton Open) in Singles and Doubles

Geraldine Brown

Geraldine is from Launceston, and was a Training Consultant for Skills Tasmania and has now retired. Geraldine has been on the Board since 1997 and was BA President from 2008 – 2018. She has been an Australian representative player (as well as a Tasmanian and Victorian representative), an administrator of the sport in Tasmania and Nationally, a coach (Level 3) at junior and senior levels and a Team Manager of various Australian Teams including the Olympic Badminton Team (2004), Thomas Cup & Uber Cup Teams (2002 and 04), Commonwealth Games Team (2002). Geraldine is also a Badminton Oceania Board Member, Vice President for BWF and Chair of BWF Women In Badminton.

Rayoni Nelson OLY

Rayoni Nelson was appointed to the board in September 2021. Rayoni represented Australia at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. She represented South Australia at many national championships and represented Australia at the 1998, 2002 Uber Cup and represented Australia at the 1998 Commonwealth Games. With over 20 years of experience working across government, sport, health, education and transport sectors, Rayoni’s career has included management roles in a broad range of areas including sport, physical activity, active transport, road safety, customer service and communications, including a focus on strategy development and implementation. Rayoni has a Bachelor of Management from the University of South Australia and Masters in Sport Management from Deakin University.  Her professional experiences include as CEO of School Sport Victoria, as part of the Department of Education, Manager of Physical Activity, Sport and Healthy Eating at VicHealth and is currently the Head of Program Strategy and Research at the Office for Women in Sport and Recreation and is on the Board of Vicsport and the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth).

Kaitlin Mason

Kaitlin is currently the Head of Marketing Media and Communications at Baseball Australia, Team Australia and the Australian Baseball League (ABL). She has worked hard to establish a successful career in the Australian and New Zealand sports industry, with a focus on Marketing, Digital Marketing, Media and Communications. Kaitlin enjoys seeking new challenges that will further develop her skills and abilities. She also enjoys the responsibility of being in a leadership role and working in a team environment where passion, initiative, and sharing ideas to get the best outcomes, is encouraged and valued. Outside the office, she likes to spend time at the beach, teaching Pilates and making memories with my family and friends.

Kaitlin says, “As a Marketing, Media and Broadcast specialist who has worked in sport in Australia and abroad for many years, working for an organisation like Badminton Australia greatly appealed to me. Badminton is an exciting, international sport and I look forward to growing the game.”

Steven Sam

 

Steven has held executive leadership roles in other engineering firms, most notably as the Head of Engineering for Scentre Group responsible for the design, development, delivery and operational support of Westfield Shopping Centre’s 41 assets across Australia and New Zealand.
Steven’s passion for badminton started over 30 years ago as a keen junior player in NZ and is still actively participating in all levels of competitions including veterans.

Paul Reining

Paul is a highly respected director and corporate advisor, and a sought-after mentor for business owners in Australia. His executive career extends over 25 years, having occupied multiple CEO and/or CFO roles, including Aussie successes Catch Group and 2XU, and executive roles in high profile listed organisations JB Hi-Fi Limited (ASX) and Kraft Heinz Company (NASDAQ). His specialty, as both a leader of businesses and those that he works closely with today, is building high performance teams to achieve high performance results. Paul commenced his professional career at Big 4 advisory firm PricewaterhouseCoopers within their Entrepreneurial & Business Services team, and in recent years returned to his consulting roots as the founding CEO of Accension, a group of experts committed to unlocking the full potential of emerging and high growth businesses. Paul discovered badminton at the age of 13 and in his junior years was a Pennant player at Mountain Districts Badminton Association. These days Paul has rediscovered his love for playing the sport and enjoys a hit down at the Ocean Grove Badminton Club. He is excited to “give back” to a sport that has provided him so much enjoyment over the years.

Paul says, I’m passionate about promoting the growth, success, and popularity of Badminton in Australia where there is such a culture and love of sport in general, and therefore so many competing choices at the grass roots. I’m committed to supporting Badminton Australia’s members, players and officials as well as providing leadership, governance, mentoring and support to all participants and administrators of the sport.”

Aditi Biswas

Aditi is currently the Head of Service & Support AU at the FNZ Group. She is a MBA qualified Executive with over 15 years’ experience across Relationship Management, Partner Alliances and Product Management within Technology Start-Up, Investment Banking and Financial Services industries. As Head of Service & Support at FNZ, Aditi holds a leadership role with primary responsibility for delivery of a responsive and effective Production Support and Service Delivery function across all Australian clients. Aditi is also an Ex-International Badminton Player and multiple national title holder; having represented India as a part of the National Badminton team and is now a Badminton World Federation accredited High Performance Coach.

Aditi says, I applied for the Board position as I believe that I could bring all of my collective experience in the Corporate world, as an International Badminton player, a BWF coach and now mother of two sports loving girls to oversee the governance of Badminton Australia in Australia.  As a Board member, I’m especially interested in the development of high-performance pathways to enable Australian Badminton players to compete effectively on the world stage and in helping improve the popularity and participation of Badminton in Australia.”