Emily Rosemond is an Australian Olympian, Commonwealth Games medallist and senior executive whose career spans high-performance sport, higher education, major events, strategy, innovation, technology and international engagement.

Over more than two decades, she has worked across complex environments where performance depends on more than individual capability — bringing together people, institutions, technology, partnerships and competing priorities around shared outcomes.

Her experience ranges from representing Australia on the world sporting stage to building new organisational capability, leading university strategy and engagement, contributing to major international events, and participating in global conversations about the future of sport, technology and innovation.

Executive leadership

Emily is Director, 2032 Engagement at Queensland University of Technology, where she works across the University to connect capability and opportunity around Brisbane 2032 and the decade of major events leading to and beyond the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Her work spans research, education, industry engagement, innovation, partnerships, precincts and student capability — connecting expertise across disciplines and translating long-term institutional ambition into coordinated activity.

Previously, Emily established and led QUT Sport, developing a new organisational function into a sustainable university-wide capability.

As Director of Sport, she developed and implemented QUT’s Sporting Strategy and led work spanning high-performance sport, participation, research translation, industry engagement, esports, virtual sport and technology-enabled access.

The role increasingly positioned sport as a platform for wider collaboration across technology, research, education, entrepreneurship and industry.

Global perspective

Emily’s career has been international from its earliest stages.

As an athlete, she represented Australia across Europe, Asia, North America and Oceania, competing at Olympic, World Championship, World Cup and Commonwealth Games level.

More recently, her international work has extended into leadership, innovation and knowledge exchange.

In Lausanne, Switzerland — home of the International Olympic Committee — Emily has represented QUT in the Virtual Sport Forum and contributed to cross-border discussions with organisations including the Japan Sport Council and international sporting bodies on virtual sport, esports, technology, education and future workforce capability.

She has also convened and contributed to discussions involving international leaders from organisations including Sport Singapore and global sporting and technology communities, with a focus on what different systems can learn from one another as sport, technology and major events evolve.

Her international engagement reflects a broader interest in how ideas, capability and innovation move between sectors and across borders — and how global experience can be translated into practical outcomes within different contexts.

High performance

Before becoming an executive, Emily experienced high performance from inside the system.

She represented Australia in short track speed skating at the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games, finishing 12th in the 1000 metres.

She later made an unusual transition from ice to track cycling, representing Australia internationally and competing at UCI World Championships and World Cup events.

At the Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games, Emily won bronze in the women’s sprint.

Competing internationally in two technically distinct sports provided experience not only in performance under pressure, but in adaptation, decision-making, coaching, technology, feedback and the broader systems required to produce elite outcomes.

Those experiences remain part of the foundation of her professional career.

Major events, innovation and technology

Emily’s experience extends across the delivery and development sides of major sport.

She has worked in major-event operations, including track cycling operations for the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, and previously worked as a field journalist within the Australian Olympic movement.

Across her university leadership roles, she has led and contributed to initiatives involving virtual cycling, esports, sports technology, research translation and technology-enabled participation.

This has included building partnerships between universities, government, industry and sporting organisations and exploring how emerging technologies can support participation, education, workforce capability and innovation.

In 2023, Emily was recognised by the Australian Sports Technologies Network in its Power 100+ list of women shaping sports innovation in Australia.

Governance and broader contribution

Emily is an Independent Director of the Queensland Games Foundation, supporting an organisation that assists Queensland athletes pursuing high-performance sporting careers.

Her broader professional contribution has included governance, advisory activity, industry programs, international forums, awards judging, speaking and cross-sector collaboration.

Across these roles, she has worked with people from government, universities, sporting organisations, industry and community organisations — often around initiatives that do not sit neatly within a single discipline or institution.

The thread through the work

Sport. Strategy. Technology. Innovation. Major events. Higher education.

They can appear to be separate chapters.

Increasingly, they are intersecting.

Emily’s career has developed at those intersections — where different disciplines meet, where established models are changing and where an emerging opportunity requires people to see beyond their individual part of the system.

Her personal writing, Threads, explores questions arising from those intersections: performance, technology, complex systems, human capability and what may create an edge next.