New Year, new leadership at Adelaide Convention Centre

Adelaide Venue Management has announced the appointment of Sarah Goldfinch (pictured) as general manager – Adelaide Convention Centre. She brings more than 25 years’ experience in the global tourism and hospitality industry to the South Australian Centre. Her career to date has included senior leadership roles within IHG Hotels & Resorts along with Accor Hotels. Most recently, she has been operating her own business consultancy, Goldfinch Hospitality, offering executive level strategic and operational direction to clients in the tourism and hospitality sectors. Martin Radcliffe, CEO at Adelaide Venue Management – operators of Adelaide Convention Centre (who was the previous GM until late December) – says: “We’re delighted to officially welcome Sarah to the team. Her extensive experience and networks will further grow our Centre and destination’s standing in the highly competitive global events marketplace. “Sarah will be an impactful ambassador for the Centre as we work to bring more national and international conventions and events to Adelaide and continue to elevate our delegate experience.” Before moving into consulting, Sarah led the opening of the new Crowne Plaza Adelaide hotel and she has consulted for the luxury Oval Hotel at Adelaide Oval, guiding the pre-opening team on everything from operations through to sales and marketing strategy. She also enjoyed a seven-year tenure as general manager at Novotel Barossa Valley Resort, with a focus on events business. Goldfinch has served on numerous boards supporting regional development, events and tourism, including Business Events Adelaide and as chair of Artisans of Barossa. Commenting on her new role, Goldfinch says: “I’m thrilled to be joining the Adelaide Convention Centre team at such an exciting time for events in South Australia, and look forward to helping further build upon the Centre’s reputation for innovation and excellence, as well as advance the great work it has been doing in the sustainability space.” AVM achieved a record financial trading profit of A$13.1m in 2022-23, attracting over 300,000 visitors to the state. Adelaide was recently, host destination for Australia’s prestigious Dreamtime international incentives showcase, which you can read all about in our new edition of CMW 128 magazine here.