Emily Wastle-Hopkins

Manager of Game Development & Planning, AFL Northern Territory

I took a different path to others and completed a school-based and a full-time AFL SportsReady traineeship before completing my university studies online. This really helped kick-start my career in the AFL industry and I’ve had many amazing development opportunities and promotions along the way.

Receiving the Jill Lindsay Scholarship was a great honour and allowed me to complete the Leadership Excellence Course with the Disney Institute with the $20,000 education grant.

The AFL offers incredible development opportunities which I have made the most of. My involvement in the AFL Industry Female Talent Program was very rewarding. A mentor told me that you don’t always need to know what your next role is, but you need to know the elements you want in your next role.

This really resonated with me when a secondment opportunity came up at AFL NT. I never saw myself moving to Darwin but the opportunity was too good to not take up. I had great support during the transition and I was offered the Game Development & Planning role permanently in 2018.