Lachlan Furnell

CEO, Queensland Cricketers Club

Transforming Business Models

Lachlan has more than 30 years’ experience within hospitality working for market leading organisations such as Accor, Mirvac, Erdi Group and Qantas in executive management positions. Lachlan has worked around Australia and throughout Asia based in Vietnam managing hotels, driving business and securing large contracts.

Employed by Accor to manage and operate the Qantas domestic lounges within Australia, he oversaw the full operation of six major ports including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra and Perth. The 16 lounges hosted 750,000 Qantas club members each month. His role was to remove the commissary style food production and employ 6 executive kitchens and 440 staff to provide members with a variety of fresh food produced daily.

With the early onset of growing a hospitality portfolio, he invested his own money to purchase the freehold of one of Brisbane’s most iconic pubs at the same time working as CEO of the Queensland Cricketers Club to offer more choice for members and their guests. The strategy was to refurbish and reposition the then tired hotel and reengineer the business mix working alongside the Club whilst investigating other business opportunities that would complement the existing model. Sitting proudly at the top of Caxton Street, the former Hotel LA has been completely transformed and rebranded to its original name The Lord Alfred Hotel.

Lachlan has a wealth of experience and a history of success transforming business models, improving service standards, food and beverage operations, product repositioning and developing team cultures. His strong financial acumen, operational expertise and sales and marketing experience has led to monumental improvements to P&L performance, increased customer base and development of brand architecture.

Lachlan is currently CEO of the Queensland Cricketers Club and is rapidly transforming this business model to a hospitality management group. The organisation has been recently rebranded to QCC Group where they manage the hospitality of other venues and business ventures including the Alan Border Field alongside Queensland Cricket, the Brisbane Premier League, Norths Cricket grounds and the International Cricket Centre.