Craig Tiley: CEO, Tennis Australia + Tournament Director, Australian Open

Published 27th May, 2025.

Craig Tiley is the CEO of Tennis Australia and long-time Tournament Director of the Australian Open — the largest annual sporting event in the Southern Hemisphere and the most-watched global sporting event each January, with over 14,000 staff, 800 players, and 2.5 billion viewers worldwide.

This is one of Craig’s most personal and rare long-form interviews. It’s time to explore your curiosity. Please enjoy.

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Hosted by Vidit Agarwal, Founder of Curiosity Center and The High Flyers Podcast.

It’s now time to explore your curiosity.

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In this rare, long-form conversation, Craig opens up about:

• Growing up in South Africa during apartheid, his activist parents, and how losing his father’s ad agency shaped his worldview
• His goal to live on five continents — and the military training that instilled discipline, resilience, and perspective early on
• Discovering tennis at age 14, skipping sailing weekends to practice against a wall, and falling in love with the sport
• Travelling through Europe with no money, sleeping in train stations and car boots, chasing the tennis dream
• Why he realised he wouldn’t make it as a pro player — and how he pivoted to coaching, eventually earning a master’s degree in Texas
• Coaching a struggling college team from 4–23 to national champions, and why he believes “if you want to learn how to lead, go and coach”
• Being unexpectedly hired by Tennis Australia in 2005, and launching a 10-year plan to rebuild the country’s tennis pipeline
• What it takes to earn player trust — and why he gave Roger Federer and the world’s #300 the same $1,000 travel cheque
• His formula for executing bold ideas year after year at the Australian Open — and the team culture that fuels innovation
• How he turned media production in-house, making content over 50% of TA’s revenue, and why he hates bureaucracy
• His bold vision for the future of tennis — including a simplified global tour and more player-first decision-making
• What we don’t appreciate about elite players — from the mental load to the resilience needed to tune out the noise
• His daily habits, the influence of his wife and executive team, and how he handles pressure behind the scenes
• The joy of convincing others to back his ideas — and why “getting everyone else to own it” is the secret to real change

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