Symmans to Chair America’s Cup Events

Emirates Team New Zealand has formed a separate company to run the America’s Cup in Auckland in 2021.

Tina Symmans, who has been a director of Emirates Team New Zealand is to be Chair of America’s Cup Event Ltd (ACE). Greg Horton who has also been on the Emirates Team New Zealand Board will also now join the Board of ACE, both effectively resigning from their team-related directorships.

Tina Symmans joined the board of Emirates Team New Zealand three years before the successful challenge in Bermuda and experienced the roller coaster ride of that campaign from lack of funding causing doubt over the teams’ ability to fund the challenge through to the gut-wrenching pitchpole in Bermuda before the eventual success of retaining the America’s Cup for New Zealand.

“Already there has been a huge amount of work done behind the scenes,” said Symmans.

“We have finalized the event location, worked out how we work with Government and Auckland City as partners as well as putting stringent governance structures and operational protocols in place.

This has all set a very solid foundation to launch into the enormous amount of work still to be done by ACE and all associated stakeholders.”

ACE has engaged Mayo and Calder as the Event Directors who have expertise and experience in designing, managing and running sailing events having managed the Volvo stopovers in Hong Kong, Melbourne and Auckland.

“Everyone knows what position they are playing and the excitement is building. We have huge challenges ahead as any event of this size will always have but as a team we will work through them,” continued Symmans.

“Some extraordinary work is being done by the teams across government and council who are planning, designing and building the infrastructure as well as looking to maximize the economic benefits from the Event for both the City and the country as a whole, which is a driving factor for everyone involved.

“The people in the Wynyard Edge Alliance that comprises private sector construction firms that Government and Council have pulled together and have blown us away with their dedication to getting the team bases ready for teams to arrive in spring next year assuming resource consenting process is completed satisfactorily.

“One of the real challenges we have is making sure we separate the work on the Event from the team so they can focus on defending the Cup. Retaining the Cup has to be the focus for the team and with the move into the Viaduct Events centre in a few weeks will enable us to separate our functions more effectively.”

Tina has over 25 years’ experience in advising companies, most particularly in the fields of strategic communications and corporate and government relations. Tina operates her own practice and has had significant experience and connectivity with the corporate sector and government.

In addition to the Emirates Team New Zealand and now America’s Cup Events Ltd directorships Tina is an independent Director of Forsyth Barr, is a member of The Takeovers Panel, Chair of private company Williams Warn, and has previously been a director of PSIS (Co-operative Bank) and Turners & Growers.

Prior to 2012, Tina was a member of the senior management team at Telecom as Director of Corporate Relations and was on the team that ran the successful demerger program forming Telecom and Chorus. Tina has had senior management team roles in large New Zealand corporates.

Source: Emirates Team New Zealand