E61: Brett Gosper of World Rugby

Today we talk to Brett Gosper the chief executive of World Rugby about how his career in advertising frames what sees as the role of a governing body.As a player in the 1980s, Gosper was a talented centre who had the misfortune to play in the era of the Ella brothers, who dominated the back line of the Australia teams at that time. We talk about Gosper’s decision to move to Paris to play for the Racing 92 club, a period in which his career in advertising was launched at Ogilvy and Mather. We talk about the influence of David Ogilvy not just on Gosper but on the advertising industry generally. Gosper left Ogilvy in 1989 and began what was a very successful career leading some of the agency sector’s biggest names, including EuroRSCG, which is now Havas, McCann Erickson in New York and TBWA.Gosper became head of the IRB in 2012 and changed the name to World Rugby and has since overseen the sport’s return to the Olympic Games in Rio and two commercially successful World Cups in 2015 and 2019 in Japan.

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