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Rosich hones deal-making skills

Fremantle Dockers chief executive Steve Rosich has been to Harvard. Picture: Mogens Johansen/The West Australian.

People on the opposite side of the negotiating table to Steve Rosich have more reason to be wary.

The Fremantle Dockers chief executive — who was instrumental in snatching top coach Ross Lyon from St Kilda in 2011 — has been upgrading his skills on the art of the deal.

Mr Rosich spent a week in the US this month studying strategic negotiations at Harvard Business School.

He took the course under a $20,000 AFL scholarship awarded last year. It followed strategy studies he completed at Stanford University in 2009.

Mr Rosich said the skills would come in handy when negotiating with the State Government over commercial terms for Perth’s new football stadium.

“And maybe Nat Fyfe’s contract in a few years’ time,” he quipped about the Dockers’ Brownlow Medal favourite.

The chief executive came to sporting administration from an accountancy background.

He was an associate director at the corporate advisory arm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu before joining the West Coast Eagles as business operations manager.

He defected to Fremantle as general manager of commercial operations before becoming chief executive in 2008.

In addition to the Lyon coup, he oversaw a rebrand of the Dockers and the decision to move the club’s headquarters to Cockburn.

“As an industry, it’s pleasing that we’re now of a size and status that we’re able to invest in our key people to ensure they are developing in the best possible way and also to an international standard,” Mr Rosich said.

He was one of two Australians at Harvard taking part among 70, and the only sports executive.

“Not only do you get access to world-class teachers but your study cohort are very experienced and capable in their own right,” he said. “You certainly get some insights from working with them over the course.”

Previous winners of the scholarship, named after former AFL commissioner Graeme Samuels, include West Coast Eagles chief executive Trevor Nisbett.