The board of Cricket Victoria recently announced the appointment of Indian Australian business leader, Harish Rao, as a director.
Cricket Victoria is the governing body for the sport of cricket in the state.
He is believed to be the first Indian Australian appointed to the board in its almost 150-year history.
With a background in finance and accounting, Mr Rao is an experienced board director and graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
He is also Chair of the Advisory Board of the Sundaram Finance Group headquartered in Chennai, India.
Sport helped to break through barriers
According to Mr Rao, when he came to Australia in 1968 with his family, there were not even 60 Indian families in Melbourne, and while there were some difficult times, sports helped him to break through barriers.
“When my family first came to Australia, I was at a private school in Melbourne, and I was the only Indian in the school. l was very heavily involved in cricket, and I played in the A team throughout my time at school. I was accepted because I was able to intermingle with the rest of the team who were local Australians,” he said.
Cricket made my life a lot easier.Harish Rao
Australia-India sports engagement
As the current Executive Director of the Australia-India Chamber of Commerce and a board member at the Australia India Institute at the University of Melbourne, Mr Rao has also been involved in promoting bilateral trade between India and Australia
Mr Rao said he believed that sport was an enabler, and could play a very big role in bringing India and Australia closer and "in breaking down some of the barriers that probably still exist".
Engaging with multicultural communities
Calling on people within the Indian and South Asian communities to get in touch with him, he said that in his new role, he would try to take their issues "up the ladder".
“I don’t have all the answers yet, but I am very happy to try and listen to where the issue is in terms of lack of representation or other issues that the multicultural communities are facing at a grassroots level and to be able to take it up to the Cricket Victoria board and management,” he said.
Development of women’s cricket
Besides accelerating opportunities for boys and girls in all areas and levels of the game, he said he saw merit in investing and supporting women’s cricket to expand its reach.
Members of an Indian women's T20 World Cup team. Source: Getty / Getty Images
He praised the Australian and Indian women’s teams for their successes and said he was positive that the two countries had a great opportunity to drive this agenda.
We want to try and get to a stage where women’s cricket is equally represented as well as men’s cricket.Harish Rao
"It will take time, but I think everyone's heart is in the right place, and we are certainly moving in the right direction and that’s where I am positioning myself, at least, on the Cricket Victoria board," Mr Rao said.
Community representation
When asked whether his appointment was part of Cricket Victoria’s inclusion and diversity initiative, Mr Rao said: “Cricket, in general, wants to make a difference at the grassroots level and (if) they want clubs to change at the grassroots level then they also need to show that they can change."
“So, to have someone represented from the South Asian community (on the board) is a good step in that regard and hopefully I can represent the community better and see what the issues are then get those changes made.”
Cultural diversity on Australian boards
He said it is important to understand that Australia is still a relatively young country and isn't at the same stage as the United States or the United Kingdom in terms of multicultural representation in parliament or on corporate boards.
“It will probably take a generational change for this to inculcate into the culture here in Australia so one of the things that are important for the Indian diaspora here and for those people who are at a senior executive level is to drive that investment and interest in India,” he said.
“That’s what happened in the US and the UK - it was the Indian diaspora that made the initial investment and then the main population followed.”
The Indian diaspora has a critical role to play in the whole bilateral relationshipHarish Rao
