ADELAIDE CEO Andrew Fagan has settled into his new position at West Lakes after replacing his predecessor Steven Trigg last September.

The former boss of Super Rugby side the ACT Brumbies brings with him more than 20 years of experience in sports administration and has quickly set about adding his own touch to the Crows.

He sat down with AFL Media's Harry Thring to speak about his role, redefining Adelaide's identity and his expectations for the club over the next five years.

HT: You've joined a different code, but is the game of running a club the same?

AF: At the end of the day there are some nuances, but at its core you've got a large group of elite athletes who are performing on the weekend and you're trying to run an elite football program.

Your revenue streams are really similar, you've got sponsorship, hospitality, licensing, membership and the like, you’ve got a digital platform and you're working in a high-profile environment where the scrutiny is second to none.

So all in all it's really similar from a business perspective. What's different is probably the scale; dealing with a club like the Adelaide Football Club that has 60,000 members and 600,000 supporters and a really prominent position in the market place in Adelaide.

HT: Does your leadership have a certain flavour? Can Crows supporters expect to clearly see your influence around the club?

AF: I'd like to think so. There's been plenty of change at the club since I arrived and my influence is probably felt in all sorts of different ways, but ultimately the job's got nothing to do with me as an individual.

It's about creating an environment where we can achieve success on and off the field.

In saying that, there are some things that I'm very particular about and some things that I think are core to being successful.

At my opening press conference I spoke about developing an elite football program because I know that drives outcomes, I spoke about putting the right people in the right seats – very quickly we embarked on the appointment of a new coach and some other changes in the broader football department.

I've made similar changes in the commercial department as well, with some recent appointments. I spoke about wanting to be an authentic footy club which reflects both me personally but how I think clubs should operate and engage, and I spoke about wanting to be the most engaged CEO with our membership and supporter base.

I'm strong on accountability as well; as a footy club we have to be accountable to each other, we're accountable to our supporter base and we're accountable to the community that supports us.

HT: An authentic football club … how exactly would you define authenticity in club land?

AF: It's not a comment that's made necessarily to reflect on the past of the Adelaide Football Club, it reflects how I'm going to operate.

A lot of clubs these days can fall into the habit of looking to sell and spin and I think our audience is too smart for that and I don't think that's the way in which we want to operate.

It's about being willing to put your hand up when you make a mistake, it's about speaking as directly as you can to address issues, and as clubs, given the scrutiny we're under, sometimes we find it difficult to do that and we can become defensive.

That's not what we're going to do because we want to have the courage to be innovative and drive things and I speak in the office about the courage to throw 10 darts knowing that seven might land and three might miss.

But we'll put our hand up when those three miss and say, 'We were trying'.

HT: It's a simple question but it's perhaps the most important question for any club – what does yours stand for? What's Adelaide's identity?

AF: That's actually a piece of work we've been going through because I think the Adelaide Football Club probably stood for a number of things depending on who it was making the observation.

As a fresh set of eyes coming into the footy club one of the comments I made internally was that unless we were all on the same page I didn't think we could expect our supporters to be.

Ultimately if the supporters aren't really clear about what you stand for as a footy club the only thing they can turn to is your on field results.

We've actually gone through a really substantial piece of work over the last couple of months to redefine the vision for the footy club, redefine the values of the footy club along with some of our brand creative, all of which will be revealed in the next couple of months.

It was time to just draw a line in the sand and redefine how we wish to act as a footy club and where we wish to take the footy club.

After significant change over the last period of time including the acquisition of our own licence, the move to Adelaide Oval, celebration of what will be our 25th season anniversary, we've got a new CEO, a new senior coach, a new captain – I think it was time to just draw a line in the sand and redefine how we wish to act as a footy club and where we wish to take the footy club.

There's been some controversy, there was a period of time when the CEO wasn’t in the seat, there's been some significant change in personnel, there's been some underperformance on the field, which just increases the pressure on the club.

In that environment it's probably not unusual for some of the direction or identity to be not as strongly delivered as you would otherwise have liked.

It's significant enough for me to think it needed a reboot so that's what I've been driving.

HT: As you pointed out, it's a huge problem for the club's brand if even those on the inside are unsure about what it stands for. How difficult is it to come into an organisation and get people on the same page in that regard?

It's not an overly difficult process but it's a really important one.

We've used some external agencies to provide us with some external thoughts and to challenge [us] – I want us to be a club that's very open to challenge.

We've also engaged deeply with all of our staff and then I've been holding regular members' forums and just getting their perspectives on the football club, on what we stand for, and what's really clear is we've got a huge amount of passion, a very large support base and a whole lot of people who want the club to be great.

For me that's what this is about, it's about a club that recognises it's underperformed recently, that wants to go on a journey from good to great.

It's about challenging ourselves really deeply and honestly and defining what we want to stand for.

HT: That uncertainty as to the club's identity has come about at a time when your rivals Port Adelaide have quickly and substantially strengthened their brand and it seems to have upset the traditional balance of power on the state's football landscape. Where do you see the Crows' current position in South Australia?

AF: I like competition; we play a sport where there's competition every weekend. 

There's a competition between 18 clubs in the AFL, there's a competition between codes, there's a competition for the hearts and minds of individuals to support your club.

I've got no problems with it – I encourage it.

In Adelaide if we’ve got two competitive clubs they will go head-to-head to ensure that football's the winner.

I don't mind being pushed and we don't spend our time thinking about what the other guys are doing, we spend most of our time thinking about what we're doing.

You look at your opposition and we'll benchmark ourselves against them constantly, not just across to Port Adelaide but to Collingwood and Hawthorn and to Sydney.

I don't believe you have to be seen as the dominant club, I don't sit there each day thinking how are we going to become the dominant club in Adelaide.

I sit there thinking about how we can achieve our goals of winning on field, of engaging with the membership base, of communicating with the content that people like to devour and of developing the revenue stream to support our ongoing success.

It's more about the process than the outcome.

If we just do all those things really well we'll have a very strong position in the market place.

How well our competitors do it comparative to us will determine how the pie is shared.

HT: Ultimately though any club's place in its market place is determined by its on-field success. As you've said, the club has been through significant change recently – how far away is it from again challenging for a premiership?

AF: We had to get the right people in the right seats and I'm really happy with Phil Walsh's appointment, I think he's an outstanding character and he's settled in really well.

I believe he's well placed to deliver on the objective of having an elite football program in the AFL, which is so important because you generally need that in order to have consistent success.

"We've got a really talented squad and I think it'd be reasonable for our supporters to expect the next three to five years are going to be successful ones for the footy club … as long as we get our backyard right.

I'm not going to walk away from that expectation.

We made a heap of change and we believe that's been really positive in how the program's being run and I expect that change will continue over the next couple of pre-seasons until we get everything just right.

It's a bit like layering; you're building upon the framework that you bed down from the season before.

I am really comfortable that Phil's the guy who's going to deliver on that and my job's to give him all the tools he needs to deliver on that.

HT: Finally Andrew, no interview with an Adelaide official would be complete without questioning the progress of Patrick Dangerfield's contract negotiations. Where's he at?

AF: I've dealt with a number of star players in a similar position to Patrick, so for me it's not unusual – it's not unusual in professional sport.

Danger feels deeply for this football club, he's a quality individual and he's an active member of the leadership group and I've been really impressed with him over the last few months.

He's mature enough to understand that there will be a lot of speculation until he makes a decision and we'll do all we can to encourage him to stay but that's a decision that will take place when it takes place.

You do everything possible to retain the players you wish to retain.