Owen Finegan, CEO of The Kids Cancer Project
Owen is the CEO of The Kids Cancer Project and starts by taking us through his story from Tradie to CEO, with Rugby being a highly influential part of that journey. Owen started out when rugby was still an amateur sport, so having a career outside of sport was essential and how Owen saw locking in a trade was the obvious choice. Rugby has been a big part of Owens life with a distinguished career as player and coach that saw him transition from amateur status to professional sportsperson. Owen earned 55 Caps for the Wallabies from 1996-2003, playing club Rugby with Randwick and is an ACT Brumbies legend.
Our focus for this show is on The Kids Cancer Project and Owen talks to us about his last 6 years as CEO including how it all started on an ordinary day in the late 1980s when Col Reynolds AOM was driving his empty tourist coach past the Children’s Hospital in Camperdown, Sydney. After stopping to let two youngsters with bald heads cross the road, he parked and went into the hospital on the spur of the moment. Touched by the spirit of everyone he met that day, Col started his personal mission to help kids with cancer in any way he could. Early on, he learned the only way to improve outcomes for these children is through advances in medical research.
We discuss how The Kids Cancer Project is essentially all about funding important research into Kids Cancer, with a research advisory committee providing the insights into where they can make the biggest difference and are currently supporting world leading and groundbreaking research projects with many charities and like-minded organisations.
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