Julie Laughton's HR skills net big FIFA Qatar World Cup role

When she realised HR was a perfect fit for her, it changed everything.

Her human resources journey took the young musician and music teacher from regional Australia to a kaleidoscopic career that has included guiding significant business restructuring in Tasmania and Victoria and running major operations at the world's biggest sporting events.

Ms Laughton's career story also shows committed people from the regions can make it big in any field, anywhere, no matter how competitive and no matter how niche.

Music teaching and HR seem very different at first thought, but Ms Laughton has noticed strong common factors.

"As with teaching, my desire was to motivate," she said.

"People have always been my passion, and HR has a lot of similarities to teaching.

"I had found my complete purpose in my career."

Her attitude towards people shaped her approach.

"Some would say I have a very different style of HR, as I believe in always being fair and reasonable to both the employer and employees," she said.

"That's the beauty of HR, being able to assist both."

Ms Laughton grew up in Ballarat, Victoria, becoming an accomplished cellist, pianist and flautist and moving into music teaching as a teenager after obtaining her diploma in cello in 1993.

She also obtained her diploma in piano that year.

Her diploma in flute followed in 1995, when she was 17, making her the youngest Australian at the time to have diplomas in three different instrumental disciplines.

She started teaching at Ballarat Grammar and went on to teach for Marcellin College after finishing school in 1994.

She was there for seven years, and also taught at Ballarat Clarendon College, Lauriston Girls' School in Melbourne, Geelong Grammar School and Melbourne private school Haileybury.

She was a regular member of numerous orchestras and string quartets until she left Australia in July 2002.

Ms Laughton started in HR in 2002 after moving to London and taking an admin position for the British Steel Pension Fund.

"I very quickly observed the work of the HR manager in the company, which really inspired me," she recalled from her current home in Qatar.

"Hastily, I discussed with the HR manager the possibility of me assisting her in her tasks.

"This led to a great passion for the work and the profession.

"I started in an HR administrator role and the path forward became clear for me."

She started her studies in the field with the UK governing body, the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development.

Ms Laughton's rise through the HR sector was meteoric, bringing HR roles at events including the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar, Olympic Games in Beijing and London, Commonwealth Games in Melbourne and Birmingham, two Australian Open tennis tournaments, a Rugby World Cup and more.

Her career has also included music teaching and HR responsibilities in a second stint at prestigious Ballarat Clarendon College and a senior HR role from 2013-17 with what was then Fairfax Media, working with newspapers in Tasmania and Victoria.

They included newspaper sites in Burnie and Devonport (The Advocate), Launceston (The Examiner) and Hobart (The Advocate and The Examiner), Albury-Wodonga (The Border Mail), Ballarat (The Courier), Bendigo (The Advertiser) , Ararat (The Advertiser), Stawell (The Times-News), Horsham (The Wimmera Mail-Times) and Warrnambool (The Standard).

Her HR business partner role covered "everything from recruitment to restructuring to performance management".

Two of those years involved a major restructuring program called Transcend which involved massive changes to work and production methods as the newspapers moved further into the digital age.

"Despite job losses occurring, it was always my passion to make this as humane as possible," Ms Laughton said.

"Therefore, I made it my mission to ensure that every staff member in Victoria and Tasmania was consulted with, and that a versatile outplacement program was put in place.

"But not one that treated staff like a number, but where each individual was cared for.

"I pride myself on always being attentive to each human being, and listening to what it means to them."

Ms Laughton's time with the pension fund ended in 2005 and she returned to Australia to pursue a more senior position.

"After applying for a role as HR manager for a travel company, my resume was passed to the office of a luxury bespoke event organisation working with the major sponsor (the NAB) of the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games," she said.

"So began my career in the niche area of HR for large-scale sporting events.

"So fascinating to think that 20 years on Victoria, once again, will host the Commonwealth Games."

Ms Laughton followed the Commonwealth Games by taking her holiday in Malawi, teaching music for three weeks in a remote area where children had to walk 2 kilometres to school each day.

She then took a senior HR role for Tennis Australia, the governing body of the the Australian Open.

"Once again, my passion was ignited to develop the talent already in place there," she said.

A year later, she applied for the HR manager's role for a firm working on the 2008 Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games.

She said she wanted to return to London to work at the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, and realised she would need to have worked at at least one previous Olympics to get a role in such a big event.

Hence the Beijing idea.

"Well, I was successful, and off to Beijing I went," she said.

"I didn't speak the language and didn't know a soul.

"But I was tasked with opening up the office for the firm I was employed by and relocating a significant number of staff, as well as employing hundreds, training and managing them for high-end hospitality of VIP and corporate programs."

After a brief tournament role at the 2009 Australian Open, she had a huge win, securing a 3.5-year contract to work as workforce manager and planner for the London Olympics.

"I arrived in London ready to embrace the challenge ahead," she said.

There were only 200 people employed at that stage.

Her workforce planning and scoping exercise underpinned the workforce's eventual growth to 72,000.

She returned to Australia after the Olympics, giving up her international HR sports career to focus on her children.

The Fairfax job was her next major role, which ended in a restructuring of HR itself.

Next was a stint with agricultural machinery company AGCO as head of HR for Australia, New Zealand and Asia.

"It was quite the interesting space to be as a female, and I was the only female in that area that reported to the board on all matters relating to HR," she said.

"But a regional girl myself, it was always my desire to get a local job in Ballarat to support my three children, as a single mother, bringing them up.

"So when the call came and I was approached to be head of HR for the number one private school in Victoria, Ballarat and Clarendon College.

"Having had a background in music teaching for about 10 years, this was an environment that brought together both areas of my experience; teaching and HR," she said.

"The school had been searching for nearly two years for a cello teacher, but there were no successful applicants to be found, as there were only a few students at the school.

"So I offered to help until someone was found.

"However, with my passion for assisting students, word quickly went round and I found myself with many classes of little cellists, and piano students who were enrolling in lessons faster than I could have the hours in the day.

"Very quickly, I ended up with a full-time teaching load."

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Ms Laughton's time at the college also included frequent trips to its King Island campus (since sold to intending tungsten miner Group 6 Metals Limited) in her HR capacity.

"However, this was not meant to be the plan long-term, as one evening, completely unexpected, I received a call from an international events company that I had not worked for before to ask me if I would consider working for them on the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar," Ms Laughton said.

"To be honest, I didn't even know where Qatar was.

"With a passion to always return one day to my true career, that of HR in large scale international sporting events, I accepted the challenge."

Her role was head of workforce for the transport company working to provide the system for the World Cup and, before that, the FIFA Arab Cup 2021.

"I was working to provide 7500 drivers and 3000 ground staff," she said.

"My role was to scope the numbers of staff it would take to put the event on from a transport perspective and then to work to manage the areas of workforce for the event."

Her responsibilities included planning, training, catering, uniforming, accreditation and the execution of it all.

"Qatar is such an amazing, diverse culture, and one of the safest countries in the world," Ms Laughton said.

She said she felt very respected as a woman and valued in Qatar and the opportunities were amazing.

Ms Laughton took on a short role about four months before the World Cup as workforce manager at the London velodrome for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games.

"I took my annual leave and went to London to assist the team there, to ensure a successful team were in place and operating at the track cycling event," she said.

The cycling events included some severe crashes - including a horrifying one where a cyclist flew into the crowd and three riders were hospitalised - and Ms Laughton worked to ensure staff were okay, mentally and physically.

"Upon returning to Doha, it was focusing on making the most of every hour of the day;" she said.

"There was not enough time left to do what was needed.

"But myself and my team did, and the world saw a highly successful World Cup, which has been mentioned to be the best one yet."

Asked what she would say to an ambitious young person unsure what they wanted to do, she said her story showed "if you put your mind to something and make it your goal, you can succeed."

"Who would have thought the girl who went to Ballarat Grammar all those years and looked destined to be a cellist would now be in such a unique senior role of HR director working on large-scale sporting events, around the world?"