AIS appoints Dean Kenneally as its new Head of High Performance

The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) has appointed former middle distance runner and renowned international sports physiotherapist Dean Kenneally as its new Head of High Performance.

Kenneally returns to Australia to take up his new AIS role after a lengthy stint abroad in both the United Kingdom and Qatar.

AIS Director Matt Favier said Kenneally’s extensive experience in a range of roles in elite sport made him the perfect candidate for this important leadership role in the nation’s central sports agency.

Favier explained “Dean has worked across a variety of fields including as first team physiotherapist with English Premier League clubs Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea, Australian team physio at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics and Great Britain’s physio at Athens in 2004.

“He has also worked as at the English Institute of Sport in a number of roles including Director of Sports Sciences and Director of Operations and has spent the past six years in Qatar where his role was to implement a framework for the integration of clinical and sports science service delivery within all the sporting clubs and federations in the country.

“As an athlete he won the Australian 800 metre title in 1990 and a silver medal in the World Student Games in the following year and went to the 1992 Commonwealth Games.

“Dean knows the ins and outs of being an elite athlete and has spent his professional career at the cutting edge of performance preparation and sports medicine.

“He has an international reputation for innovation in his field and a broad experience across elite Olympic and non-Olympic sports.

“That gives him an excellent understanding of the complexities of elite sports and the demands on both the individual and team athletes.”

Kenneally was born and raised in Melbourne and remains a supporter of AFL club Melbourne, the club his father was a premiership winning player for in 1960 and 1964.