ProfessorDavid Shilbury AM

Emeritus Professor David Shilbury AM FAICD was the Director of the Deakin Sport Network (2017-25), the Foundation Chair of Sport Management, a former Head of the School of Management and Marketing (2002-2007) and Associate Dean in the Faculty of Business and Law at Deakin University. Dr Shilbury was appointed as Australia's first Professor of Sport Management in 2000 having commenced at Deakin in January 1990. He has previously worked for the WA Golf Association, the City of Stirling and the Australian Cricket Board/WA Cricket Association. Academic qualifications include a Ph.D. from Monash University (1995, a Master of Science in Sport Management from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst (1989), a Bachelor of Applied Science (Recreation) (1986) and a Diploma of Teaching (1978) from Edith Cowan University. He is also a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) course (2013) and was awarded Fellow status of the AICD in 2025. He has won multiple awards for his work in advancing sport management through his scholarship, teaching and service.

David has in excess of 140 publications including 17 books, 19 book chapters, 86 refereed publications in more than 20 different journals worldwide, plus 31 technical reports and non-refereed publications. He has also presented in excess of 110 conference papers worldwide. His co-authored text entitled Strategic Sport Marketing 5th edition (Routledge), the first of its kind in Australia, was first published in January 1998 and the 2nd edition was adapted for the Netherlands in 2004, Greece in 2007, and translated into Chinese in 2004. In addition, he is the lead author of Sport Management in Australia 6th edition (2024) published by Routledge and is the lead Editor of the Routledge Handbook of Sport Governance (2020) and sole editor of A Research Agenda for Sport Management (2022) published by Elgar Publishing. He was also Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sport Management from 2015 to 2018 (remains the only non-North American Editor) (editorial Board member from 2003 to 2023), and Editor-in-Chief of Sport Management Review from 2002 to 2004 and was an editorial board member from 1998-2024. Both are A-ranked journals.

Research grants include those from the Australian Sports Commission, Australia India Council, the Australian Football League, Cricket Australia, Cricket Victoria, Sport and Recreation Minister's Council and the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing. Research expertise include sport governance, sport management and strategy.

David was the Foundation President of the Sport Management Association of Australia & New Zealand (SMAANZ) from 1995 to 2001, a member of the Victorian Sports Council (1994-95), a member of the Australian Football League Tribunal from 1992 to 2003, an executive council Member of the North American Society for Sport Management (2015-18) and a Director of Peninsula Leisure Pty Ltd (2013-18) a facility and leisure management group responsible for managing the Peninsula Aquatic and Recreation Centre on behalf of the Frankston City Council. He was also a member of the Netball Australia Nominations Committee (2019-21) and is the current President of Golf Victoria and has been a Director of Golf Victoria since 2014. In 2024 he was appointed to Golf Australia's Nominations Committee. 

In 2007, he was invited by the Singapore Government to become a member of an international advisory panel to review the vision and plans for sport in Singapore. In 2012, he was invited to join the advisory board of a Task Force initiated by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism to formulate a strategic plan to develop the sport industry in South Korea and he was appointed as an International Visiting Professor at Coventry University, UK (2015-18). He was an adjunct Professor of the Global Sport Management Masters Program at Seoul National University, in South Korea (2015-18).

Emeritus Professor Shilbury was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2025 King's Birthday Honours list. Other awards received include the inaugural Jim and Alison Leslie award for teaching excellence at Deakin University (1998), Victorian Sports Federation's Eunice Gill Award for Sport Leadership (2000), awarded Research Fellow status of the North American Society for Sport Management (2009) and the Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand (2024) and was the inaugural SMAANZ Distinguished Service award winner in 2009. In 2011, he became the first non-North American scholar to be awarded the prestigious Earle. F. Zeigler lecture award by the North American Society for Sport Management.