From Robbie Williams to running Flemington: The rise of Kylie Rogers

Horses have been a constant in Kylie Rogers’ life. In good times and in bad.

She grew up three blocks from the Donvale equestrian centre where she first learned to ride. Her family kept horses on their weekend getaway farm at Lake Eildon, near Mansfield.

Victoria Racing Club CEO Kylie Rogers has been in her new role for a month. Credit: Simon Schluter

She became enamoured with the beauty and the colours of Flemington’s spring carnival from the time she turned 18.

She worked as a sales representative for Network 10 when it was broadcasting the Melbourne Cup during the late 1990s, selling the slots during the carnival to advertisers.

Her husband, Andrew, was a Victoria Racing Club member. When they moved to Sydney for 20 years with work, their three boys learned to ride at a pony club.

There were always horses. Even, as she explains, in grief.

“My husband passed away in April, and I needed to get away, and I went to a friend’s farm. And I went riding,” she says. “Because that is my happy place.”

Well, that is meant to be her happy place. Not long into the ride, Rogers fell.

VRC CEO Kylie Rogers ahead of the 2024 spring carnival.Credit: Simon Schluter

“The property we were on had some burning off, and the horse got spooked by the flames, and I just rolled off,” she says.

Rogers laughs about it now, as she sits in the VRC boardroom at the top of Flemington’s iconic straight. She is 30 days into her role as the club’s first female chief executive.

She laughs about falling off because, looking back, it is as absurd as it is unfair. Just when you think life can’t get any worse, the universe has a habit of smacking you in the face.

As she lay on the ground, Rogers, a newly widowed mother of three, was confronted with two choices: stay down or get back on the horse. She says she chose to get up. “It’s like, when things are tough, move forward because it’s your only option,” she says. “Get back on the horse. One foot in front of the other.”

Bumpy ride ahead

Rogers does not want to speak about the trauma of losing her husband to cancer. It is a past she prefers to keep private. But she does acknowledge the help needed to raise their three boys – Ned (year 12), Albie (year 10) and Ollie (grade six).

“I have incredible support through my family and friends, an unbelievable community around me, including neighbours,” she says.

“I have a fantastic household manager – I don’t like that term – who supports me with what the kids need, and just the day-to-day household requirements, and we get through.”

In her business life, Rogers is doing more than simply getting through.

As Flemington Racecourse prepares to host the Turnbull Stakes meeting this Saturday, a month before the Melbourne Cup carnival, Rogers has done the rounds.

She has met trainers, breeders, owners and bookies. She has spent time with Racing Victoria and the state government. She says Flemington is already feeling like home.

The Big Day Out used to be a regular feature at the Flemington Racecourse. Credit: Jason South

But Rogers also understands she is in for a bumpy ride. The club has costs to cut.

The VRC has copped successive financial year losses of $16.9 million and $14.9 million, following the crowd-wrecking COVID-19 pandemic. Two years after the club borrowed heavily to open a $128 million grandstand at Flemington in October 2018, it sat empty as Twilight Payment won the Melbourne Cup.

Losing blockbuster crowds placed a huge financial burden on the VRC. Now Rogers has to find a way to ease the load.

“First and foremost, racing is our priority. It is at the core of everything that we do,” she says.

“We are a racing club with 35,000 members, and it is our job to put on spectacular race meets, 21 days a year. In and around that, it’s about growing our consumer space. We have 127 hectares. There are plenty of spaces in and around our park, or Flemington Place, as we’re calling it, where we can engage different audience sets.

“We are going to welcome 350,000 people to our place between September and April next year for non-race meets, and that’s predominantly music festivals and concerts in bespoke marquees.

“We are talking to [entertainment company] TEG about ABBA [a 3D virtual concert], and we are talking to others about other opportunities. The two can co-exist … but racing will always be No.1.”

AFL’s shining star

Rogers has a history of getting things right. She aced secondary school at Tintern Grammar, she double-majored in film and television as well as psychology at Monash University – “clearly, I was confused about what I wanted to do” – and she climbed the ladder to become national commercial director at Network 10.

Kylie Rogers with then-AFL colleagues Gillon McLachlan, Laura Kane and Andrew Dillon at the 2023 Brownlow Medal.Credit: Getty Images

But it was after joining the AFL that she really hit her straps.

Barely six months into her role as head of commercial, she helped orchestrate a deal that would result in Marvel taking naming rights at the AFL’s Docklands stadium.

Robbie Williams performs at the 2022 AFL grand final.Credit: Eddie Jim

Four years later, while acting as CEO in Gillon McLachlan’s absence, Rogers met Robbie Williams back-stage at a Melbourne concert in an exchange that would change grand final entertainment forever.

“I took advantage of that meeting because we were getting along terribly well,” Rogers recalls. “I said to Robbie, ‘Robbie, you are the greatest entertainer in the world, we have the greatest game in the world, how about you come and play at our grand final this year?’

“And he looked at me, and he looked at his manager, and he said, ‘You have my full commitment’.

“Getting the right talent was arguably the hardest part of my job at the AFL, strangely … [but] I feel like that performance [in the 2022 grand final] set a benchmark for new expectations in that space.”

Williams’ grand final spectacular is not the only concert linked to Rogers. Earlier this year, her friend, Tina Arena, performed at the AFL’s Gather Round welcome dinner in Adelaide, and it was then that Rogers’ challenges at home became public.

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend because my husband was very sick at the time, and she did a tribute to my husband on stage,” Rogers says.

“That was, I believe, her reference that, ‘I’m here because Kylie, my friend, asked me. Unfortunately, she’s not here, and we’re sending our love’. Tina’s a beautiful soul. She’s got beautiful energy.”

Power of Mamamia

Rogers left the AFL to start her new role at Flemington, but not before putting her hand up for McLachlan’s job when he announced his resignation in April 2022.

“There are no surprises that I went for the CEO role, and didn’t get that,” Rogers says.

“I was thrilled for Andrew Dillon, and he’s doing a spectacular job. But I was ready to lead, and the VRC feels right.”

Rogers chooses not to make a big deal about being the racing club’s first female CEO. Her resume speaks for itself.

But for those doubting she will bring a breath of fresh air to a male-dominated industry, consider a four-year slice of her impressive CV.

In 2015, after 17 years at Network 10, she was appointed managing director of Australia’s largest women’s digital network, Mamamia, founded by Mia Freedman.

“I really saw firsthand the power of a purpose-led organisation,” Rogers says. “The purpose at Mamamia is to make the world a better place for women and girls. It’s hard not to resonate with that. And it brought exquisite clarity to the business.

Jockey Mark Zahra celebrates on Without A Fight after winning last year’s Melbourne Cup.Credit: Joe Armao

“The other major lesson in working there was the importance of an entrepreneurial spirit – having innovation as a mindset, constantly wanting to grow, constantly wanting to push, constantly hustling to move forward.”

Rogers expects to be hustling during spring as she soaks up the Flemington carnival – from fashions on the field at The Park to meeting core partners in the Birdcage, hosting in the committee room and checking out new offerings in The Nursery.

“I will be on my feet,” she says. “I won’t be wearing high heels.”

Happy place

Even at home, Roger likes to keep moving. She rises early to exercise – either Pilates or a five-kilometre run. She has run a half-marathon with her girlfriend, Fran, and she often competes in the Mother’s Day Classic charity event.

“I do what I need to do to get through,” Roger says.

In her downtime, she likes to go to the theatre or the movies – “I studied film and television remember?” – and she loves going out to dinner with “great friends”.

And then there’s hanging out with her family, and raising her three boys.

“It’s busy. Yeah, really busy,” she says. “There’s nothing better than waking up on a Saturday morning and taking the three boys to their various football games. There’s nothing better.

“And there’s nothing better than going up to Mansfield to the family farm. That’s my happy place.”

Even when she falls off.

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