Turf love: How horse lover and Australian Turf Club Chair Trish Egan harnessed her passion

Women on Boards: Leader, directors & subject matter experts in conversation with Claire Braund

Trish Egan is a born and bred Sydney girl, but she has had a lifelong love of horses from a young age, further fuelled when Dad would take her to the races as a child. Looking back, 12-year-old Trish - who secretly penned a letter to the Chairman of the Australian Jockey Club asking how she could secure her “dream job” of being a strapper - would never have thought she’d be taking the reins as Chair of the Australian Turf Club Foundation over four decades later.

Despite being told that “stables were not the place for young ladies” and perhaps she needed to think about a different career, Trish never gave up on her racehorse dream.

Now, after years after cutting her teeth with Unilever and going on to carve out a successful career in marketing and sales with multinationals such as SmithKline Beecham and Kellogg’s, then moving to the not for profit sector with Vision Australia and now as COO of Diabetes NSW & ACT, Trish’s board journey has led her back to the stables.

In 2015 she started her NED career when she was appointed by the NSW Minister of Gaming and Racing as an independent director of ATC in Sydney.

Now Chair, she is playing a role in securing a future for the industry - “it's really important that you have an understanding of what the next generation thinks about your product, not just the generation you're targeting” - and ensuring the welfare of the ex-racehorses as Trustee of Racing NSW Thoroughbred Welfare Fund.

LinkedIn: Trish Egan | Claire Braund (host)

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