Acclaim for man behind GC2018

THERE’S never been an organisation like it on the Gold Coast and the man in charge of building it into a dynamic city game-changer will also have to dismantle it completely in just a few short months.

As CEO of GOLDOC, the organisation behind the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, Mark Peters leads the city’s most complex organisation, juggling multiple events and budgets, liaising with governments at home and abroad, and hiring a diverse and swiftly growing workforce while sticking to a bid book written in 2011.

It’s a breathtaking task he began as part of the initial bid and will end a few short months after the closing ceremony takes place.

Mr Peters is revealed as number one on the 2017 Gold Coast Bulletin Power 100, which is out in full today.

When the lights go down at Metricon on April 15, the Games machine will wind down and be switched off for two weeks, before whirring back into life to report, review and debrief on the nation’s largest event in a decade.

But during that quiet fortnight in shutdown, the Gold Coast’s most powerful man will finally be able to tend to some important personal business he has had to put on hold. While organising the Games, Mr Peters lost both of his parents. In April he’ll get to say goodbye.

“My mum passed away early this year and dad passed away a couple of years ago, so in my journey I’ve lost both mum and dad,” he said.

“Mum always wanted to get her ashes spread on the Port Neill Jetty in South Australia, where she grew up, just up from Port Lincoln. So our family is going over there to get a very calm day, spread the ashes and just enjoy this beautiful horseshoe bay.”

Before those moments however, Mr Peters has a career crescendo to reach – millions of hours of work distilled to 11 days.

He’s reached this point by ensuring he brought good people along with him on the ride – and also by a simple yet effective principle of honesty.

“There are a few sayings that a lot of us survive on and one is if you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember what you said,” he said.

“If you’re involved in a major event or something – if you do an honest bid, if you can defend that, then you know the rest of your planning and how you deliver is actually going to fall into place.

“I think I’ll reflect on it even more in three, five years’ time – how good was that?”