Lights out and away we go!

Life working in the F1 world can be as fast paced as the cars, with incredible exposure to talented (and even very famous) people within the motorsports industry.

I commenced my role at F1 late last year, joining as a Senior Financial Planning and Analysis Manager within the Commercial Finance team. My team oversees all financial elements of the commercial divisions within F1, including media rights, race promotion, sponsorship, hospitality and experiences, licencing, marketing and more.

Rupert and I discovered by accident that we were both OTGs once we connected on LinkedIn and noticed a lot of mutual connections. The Strategy team where Rupert works sits next to Finance, and our teams go hand-in-hand with supporting the commercial and operational departments of the business. There certainly can be projects where both our teams contribute such as Strategy looking at feasibility of new race locations and Finance providing any financial modelling and analysis around that.

The scale and complexities of this business are almost out of this world! It is a behemoth and that is not exaggerating. Everything from the logistical operation of operating 24 races in 20 countries (with each country having its own nuances and cultural considerations), to the meticulous detail that goes behind every single element of ensuring a smooth operating race weekend (such as camera placements to ensure sponsors get their minimum contracted seconds of exposure, to dozens of kilometers of cabling that is set up around the race circuits to ensure adequate connectivity and tracking of race data), can be mind boggling.

This makes the job extremely challenging, but highly rewarding.

Formula 1 is a complex business with a lot of teams, functions and expertise. Interestingly, unlike most sports, F1 runs all its own broadcast, technology and timing systems so employs its own camera people, directors, engineers, graphics teams and riggers who operate remotely and at the track.

At F1, I am a Senior Strategy Business Partner in the Central Strategy team. In this role I work directly with the sport’s Sponsorship, Licensing and Digital Advertising teams to help them identify new partners and opportunities, and to grow long-term revenues. I also support the Racing Systems team on strategic projects that involve F1 data, analytics and technology.

I’m based at F1’s head office in Piccadilly Circus, London. A normal day involves first catching up on emails and sports business news before getting into “proper” work, which is a mix of project management, slide creation, financial modelling and meetings with members of the Commercial team. At any one time I’m often involved in or leading 5-10 cross-departmental projects which means a lot of variety in subject matter.

When the Finance team told me they were hiring another Australian I didn’t quite expect them to have gone to the same school! It’s been great to discover Nikos and I are both OTGs and share memories from Trinity.