Power 100: Gold Coast Suns CEO Mark Evans debuts at 46 after stellar 2017 at helm of club

BARELY six months into the job, Gold Coast Suns CEO Mark Evans made one of the biggest announcements in the club’s history — and it’s just one of three things which has seen him debut in the top 50 of this year’s Power 100.

Gold Coast SUNS CEO Mark Evans (centre) has debuted on the Gold Coast’s Power 100 list.

BARELY six months into the job, Gold Coast Suns CEO Mark Evans made one of the biggest announcements in the club’s history — that our team would join the wildly-successful AFL women’s league in 2020.

Two months after that, he signed a $1 million five-year sponsorship deal with Cover-More Travel Insurance, after the team had been short a major sponsor for more than a year.

Mr Evans has debuted straight to the top 50 of the Gold Coast Bulletin’s Power 100 list this year, coming in at number 46.

SURFER STEPH AT NUMBER 68

DAWN’S DEBUT AT NUMBER 90

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The Suns bid for a AFL Women’s team also included a commitment to selecting graduates from AFL Cape York House for Girls to play for the Suns. Shantel Ripia, Grace Perry and Kitara Farrar are looking forward to the opportunity.

He has already laid groundwork for an even-better 2018 — turning around the team’s Commonwealth Games lockout of Metricon into a positive — selling the home games to Perth, Cairns and Shanghai and making some dollars for the club.

Mr Evans is among the third instalment of 20 entrants to the 2017 list, which have been revealed exclusively to subscribers at goldcoastbulletin.com.au today.

Others landing positions between 60 and 41 include real estate agents, developers and politicians.

The latest edition joins numbers 100-81 which were revealed on Saturday and numbers 80-61 which came out yesterday.

Mark Evans was named Suns CEO in February. Picture: Glenn Hampson

Further instalments will be unveiled exclusively for subscribers of goldcoastbulletin.com.au daily this week, ahead of the release of the full list in a 32-page gloss magazine inside the Gold Coast Bulletin on Friday.

The magazine will also include data on where powerbrokers have tracked in the past eight years, stories about those who fell off the list this year and a brand new feature on Gold Coast power couples — the influential combinations of characters who rule the city together.