Q&A: Kirsten Thomson -from ‘bursting’ to wear her first NSWIS tracksuit to training, to running the organisation 

As 42 of the New South Wales Institute of Sport’s (NSWIS) scholarship holders and Para Unit supported athletes prepare to compete at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games, the Institute’s Chief Executive Officer Kirsten Thomson OLY provided great insights into her role and leadership style, preparing NSWIS’s athletes to compete on the world stage – including the all-important 2032 home Games – articulating the expectations NSWIS athletes live with, the currency of medals, and the challenges Australian sport is facing. 

NSWIS: Thanks for your time, Kirsten. We’re approaching the first three months of your leadership at NSWIS, what has made the biggest impact on you? 

KIRSTEN THOMSON (KT): The passion and determination of our athletes. I love spending time with our athletes and seeing their immense talent, their resilience and the impact we have on them. From a staff perspective, there is so much potential at NSWIS, and my job is to create opportunities and remove barriers so everyone can flourish, and I see that as an exciting opportunity. 

NSWIS: What do you think you’re going to enjoy most about your role? 

KT: I love the breadth of my role. I articulated to Melanie Hawyes [Secretary, Department of Creative Industries, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport] during a Town Hall interview last week that I feel very connected to what I do. I don’t think everyone wakes up every morning with so much passion and care about what they do for a day job – but for me, my role at NSWIS is very connected with who I am as a person. The opportunity to support the next generation of athletes is something I am passionate about. 

NSWIS: Describe your leadership style? 

KT: In terms of leadership, I have a strong ‘team’ philosophy – we have each other’s backs; we challenge each other respectfully, and we get after things. 

NSWIS: You were among NSWIS’s first scholarship holders in 1996 as member of the Swimming Program, how did that athlete experience allowed you to prepare for this role as CEO? 

KT: I remember the first time I wore my NSWIS tracksuit, and how much I was busting to get to the pool wearing it. I want our athletes to feel that sense of pride and we can achieve that by ensuring athletes value what we do.  

What I learned from my time as an NSWIS athlete is the need to be creative in order to find ways to win; the people who supported me, my doctors, physios, S&C practitioners would always go above and beyond, but they were also highly creative in the way they solved problems.   

NSWIS: You won a silver Olympic and world championships medal as a member of Australia’s women’s 4 x 200m freestyle team. What level of determination, commitment and sacrifice did it take for you to get there and how have you applied those traits to your professional career? 

KT: Any elite athlete will tell you there is good and bad about their high performance experience. The great parts for me were the resilience it helped me to build; figuring out what it takes to win, because winning is never linear. Every day of your athlete journey can throw a spanner in the works, and it is how you deal with that challenge that matters. I use that every day when I enter the workplace. 

My team philosophy could be considered ironic because my sport was individual focussed. However, there was no greater sense of pride than swimming in a relay with three other women and sharing that experience. I fondly remember the moments walking on the pool deck as a member of the Australian swim team . . . people stopped because there was a presence. That’s where the team philosophy comes in for me, it’s the saying ‘The whole is greater than the sum of our parts.’ NSWIS will only be great if we work together. 

NSWIS: You were CEO of Swimming NSW before coming to NSWIS, what message can you share about leadership?  

KT: My super-power is my network. I don’t have the answers to every challenge that I need to solve, but I think some leaders can fall into that trap of thinking they need to know the answer to everything.  

What has made me effective as a leader is my network of mentors; the people I can call. I spend most of my time on the way to and from work talking to my mentors. I think about the problem I’m trying to solve and ask myself who I know that has dealt with something similar and I call them. 

NSWIS: The Institute has a proud record of achievement – 110 Olympic medals, 202 Paralympic medals, 404 world titles – how do you, as CEO, help build on that? 

KT: Our team philosophy is ‘dream boldly, act with kindness, deliver with purpose.’ If we want to be better than ever, we need to picture what that looks like. NSWIS’s new strategic plan will be ambitious; it will be bold, and unapologetically so.  

NSWIS: What are the expectations NSWIS athletes live with; and what is a popular misconception the public has about elite high performance athletes in Olympic and Paralympic sport. 

KT: I am hoping this narrative is starting to shift, and I think the International Olympic Committee’s announcement around direct athlete payment for each Games [they’ll pay athletes who compete at a Games $US10,000] is a recognition that times are changing. A popular misconception is the athletes who win gold medals have pockets filled with gold, but the average NSWIS athlete earns less than the minimum wage per annum. They need to then fund their participation in sport which can include travelling overseas to compete, and that could be six months of a year for a winter sport athlete which makes employment near impossible.  

We must continue to strongly advocate the need to support our athletes because we know from history that if Australia is going to have a successful 2032 home Games, NSW athletes are going to need to perform. 

NSWIS: Is it wrong to measure NSWIS success by medals and medals alone? 

KT: Is it wrong to measure us by medals? No. But by medals alone? Yes. We exist to support NSW athletes to perform on the international stage. How we do that should also be measured. I’ve certainly seen in the national sporting system in Australia over recent years, a really positive message around Win Well. We can look after an athlete’s wellbeing and still push the boundaries of what’s possible in athletic performance. That’s the dual focus we have, and we must own that.  

NSWIS: What are your plans for NSWIS at the 2032 home Games and how will they be fulfilled? 

KT: I want to see NSW athletes strongly contributing to Australia’s medal success. How that will be fulfilled is how well we deliver on our new strategic plan (to be released shortly), and how effectively we perform as a team. We have a lot of work to do between now and then. We need to be clear on who is our talent for 2032 and what support they need to perform.