Belgravia Group's Geoff Lord recognised with AUSactive Chair's Award

Geoff Lord, Chairman and Chief Executive of the Belgravia Group, has tonight been recognised with the Chair's Award at the 2024 AUSactive Award Gala in Sydney.

In his role at the Belgravia Group, which he founded in 1990, Lord is responsible for, and has ownership (or part ownership), of a broad sweep of businesses in Australia and New Zealand, including many in the leisure industry.

These include Belgravia Leisure, Belgravia Health and Fitness (including Genesis Health and Fitness, Coaching Zone and Ninja Parc), JUMP! Swim Schools, Recreational Gymnastics Australia, BK’s Gymnastics, Belgravia Pro, Belgravia Outdoor Education,

Australian Sports Camps, The Dance Society and the Sports Community along with industry supplier Novofit, registered training organisation Belgravia Academy and the recently acquired GymbaROO.

His other businesses include Belgravia Events, Belgravia Apparel, Belgravia Finance, Belgravia Properties, Belgravia Technologies, Belgravia Investments and a business services division.

He has also created the Belgravia Foundation to connect the community to sports, recreation and fitness.

In addition to these achievements, he has been President of AFL club Hawthorn, Chairman of A-League club Melbourne Victory and is currently one of the principal backers of the WNBL team the Boomers move to Geelong.

Lord's lifelong love of sport has expanded into a commitment to not only the business side of physical activity in many forms but also as an advocate for improving exercise and activity levels among younger people.

On being presented with his award tonight, he received a standing ovation from the more than 400 people in attendance, one of the largest ever AUSactive Awards crowds.

Speaking to Australasian Leisure Management later, Lord advised “this is a great industry and playing a role in a platonic way in the industry is very satisfying.

“We have set ourselves an objective of getting to a million kids a year to make them more active, having them engaged in less screen time and, instead, doing more constructive and healthy activities.

“It's a responsibility of people like myself and other business leaders to try to create something worthwhile for mankind and I am committed to make a contribution to make this industry more effective.”

Earlier, Lord had advised of three things he seeks to achieve: tax deductibility for programs that help people be more active; to build a significant investment fund, which would enable more facilities to be built; and to get more people actually in the industry enjoying the industry and participating.”

Commenting on this, he added “I think that's very important.

“If I can make a contribution those ways, I'd be really pleased to.”

Explaining how his businesses have evolved, Lord went on to say “we've moved now into new areas from originally starting in swimming and then to health clubs and then to gymnastics (and) we're now starting to move into outdoor education, into dance, into cheer, into new activities.

“But having gone into those, we can have more activities, but we want to be more deeply involved. And that includes in some way being involved in the goal setting of those sectors and in the regulations that control those sectors.

“I'm a businessman without massive involvement in the day-to-day of these industries, but I think you can help to coordinate it and set targets and then get the people to try to achieve those targets. And that's what we're trying to do.

“It really is a commercial business model in one way, but we only want to do it in areas where we think there are beneficiaries where people can benefit.

“We want to do feel good things and do good things in the values that we have in the organisation. It should not be ultimately just a commercial operation. It should be a combination of commercial, but in areas that we think may play a positive role for people.”

Commenting on the program, AUSactive Chief Executive, Barrie Elvish said it was an honour to celebrate this year’s winners, noting “I’m immensely proud of the achievements of our award winners and all the category finalists in this year’s Awards Program.

“It was a privilege to … present the Chair’s Award to Geoff Lord from Belgravia Group.

“Your dedication to the Australian active health and fitness industry is phenomenal.”

Lord’s award, presented by AUSactive Chair Jayne Blake, came during the AUSactive Award Gala and followed the presentation of individual and business awards.

Details of these will follow.

A feature on Geoff Lord will appear in Australasian Leisure Management issue 165 - available in early December..

Image: Geoff Lord addresses the 2024 AUSactive Award Gala after receiving his Chair's Award. Video courtesy of Mel Tempest.