McKenna joins CA management exodus

Mike McKenna, longtime ally of the chief executive James Sutherland, has become the latest Cricket Australia executive to depart the governing body, accepting the job as chief executive of Perth's new Burswood Stadium.

Formerly an employee at the Essendon AFL club, McKenna joined CA in 2005 in a marketing role and subsequently ascended to the job of Executive General Manager - Operations. He also served as acting CEO of CA on numerous occasions.

McKenna's most memorable contribution to CA was to help expedite the introduction of the Twenty20 Big Bash League, of which he was named project manager, at the 2010 Australian Cricket Conference, and then navigate a period in which private ownership of some clubs was considered and then rejected.

His exit follows the departure of the head of finance Kate Banozic, another long-term executive known to be close to Sutherland, who has held the role of CEO since 2001.

A mood for change at CA executive level has grown steadily since the appointment of independent board directors in 2012, and was hastened by the move of the highly regarded former New South Wales player and corporate figure Kevin Roberts from the board to management in September last year, replacing Alex Wyatt as Head of Strategy and People.

Roberts and McKenna previously worked together when the former was Head of Adidas in Australia and the latter Head of Commercial Operations. The deal between CA and Adidas ended abruptly in 2011.

Following the exit of Michael Brown in 2012, McKenna's role was expanded to include numerous operations roles including behavioural codes and polices, including the players' code of conduct.

An internal review of this area in 2013 by the one-time AFL executive Adrian Anderson resulted in the creation of a separate integrity unit in order to remove any perceived conflict of interest between the commercial and disciplinary wings of CA.