Dominique Dowding, Creating a masterplan -transforming & reinvigorating a sunset industry

Dominque provides insights into how to diversify while balancing commercial and community objectives. Creating a sustainable business with a “declining” professional sport at the heart of it is also on the agenda. She discusses commercial property development, retail, governance, ideas for rejuvenation and challenges of creating a lifestyle village that is also a destination . She also touches on intricacies of running a “membership based co-operative organisation".

Dom is the chief executive of a prominent Auckland entity in transformation. As a young girl in Barbados she was sent to boarding school in England at the age of eight for first encounters with cold temperatures and kippers. Returning to Barbados she worked in broadcasting, hospitality, sales and marketing and investment management handling a widely spread family investment portfolio. Her introduction to this country saw her start work with a bankrupt hotel which led to the role of director of sales and then deputy general manager of the Christchurch Town Hall and Convention Centre where she took responsibility for sales, marketing, events, facilities and IT. She drove a loss of $8 million into profit transforming the business in structure and focus.

She developed her own investment and advisory business, served as an independent director and in 2012 joined the Auckland Trotting Club as chief executive officer, a role she currently holds. With assets of $250 million and a staff of around 300 she runs racing, hospitality, gaming, retail and property development on a

With a 51 hectare portfolio with 16.5 hectares located in Epsom and 35 hectares in Franklin near the country’s major city with strategy and financial responsibility for the largest brownfield development in Auckland. It is, by any terms, a major transformation programme in action.