INTHEBLACK July 2022 - Magazine - Page 32
MEMBER PROFILE
// L E A D E R S & I N N O VAT O R S
“I KNEW I NEEDED TO KNUCKLE DOWN AND EDUCATE MYSELF TO ENSURE
I HAD A SOLID FOUNDATION FOR THE FUTURE. A GOOD SOLID GROUNDING IN
ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE WAS THE CHOICE AT THE TIME AND NOW,
LOOKING BACK ALL THOSE YEARS LATER, I FEEL CERTAIN THAT IT WAS
A GOOD DECISION.”
EYE ON THE FUTURE
While Morrison was raised to understand what
happened during this dark period of Australia’s history,
including the ethical and moral wrongs of the past, his
family raised him to take positivity from this sad time
and to use the pain and sacrifice of his elders as
inspiration to take every opportunity with both hands
to lead him on a pathway of achievement in life.
“My grandfather [Reg Hart] never dwelled on
the past. He never blamed the people of today.
My grandfather always said there was no point in
looking back – you must always move forward and
do everything you can to be a good person, be kind, a
contributor to society and all we can do is try to work
towards ensuring the wrongs of the past do not happen
in the future. That is all we can control. This attitude has
remained with me for life.”
Morrison grew up in the inner city of Brisbane and
attended Ascot Primary School and Wavell High
before gaining a bachelor of commerce (accounting
and finance) from the University of Queensland at
St Lucia. He always showed a penchant for the social
sciences, accounting and mathematics. “I guess it was
unsurprising I ventured down the path I did,” he says.
One thing he never queried was his passion for
cricket. Like most young Australians, he took to it from
a young age, enjoyed the team environment and learned
his craft through the Queensland Cricket structure.
“When you are a kid you want to play cricket for
Australia, but my head was clear and I knew I needed
to knuckle down and educate myself to ensure I had a
solid foundation for the future. A good solid grounding
in accounting and finance was the choice at the time
and now, looking back all those years later, I feel certain
that it was a good decision.”
CAREER JOURNEYS
Morrison left for the mecca of most young professionals
in Australia – the UK – in 2004, but shortly before
leaving he was also selected for the Queensland Imparja
Cup side that won the National Indigenous Cricket
Championships in Alice Springs.
His performance as part of the winning team led him
to being selected for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Island Commission XI to play the Prime Minister’s XI
later that year.
32 ITB July 2022
In 2004, Morrison moved to the UK for his second
season as the overseas professional at Marchwiel
Cricket Club, and while there he worked in the finance
function for HBOS on a six-month International
Accounting Standards contract. He describes his stint
in the north-west as an eye-opener – he was living in
the prestigious Marchwiel Hall, home to arguably one
of the most famous building and construction families
in the UK, the McAlpine family.
In late 2004 he moved to London to take on a
financial reporting and product control role with UBS
Investment Bank at the Swiss Bank’s iconic flagship
building at Liverpool Street in London. In 2006 he
moved to Jersey to join UBS Group Treasury, and it
was around this time that Jersey had gained Associate
Status with the ICC, coincidentally playing alongside
now test cricketing nation Afghanistan in World
Cricket League 5 in 2008. After fulfilling the ICC
qualifying period requirements, Morrison was selected
to play for the tiny island nation in 2010.
THE BIRTH OF LASSWHO
Where was all this heading? Could the many skills and
experiences come together as a single idea? In the
depths of the pandemic Morrison dreamt up
LassWho (lasso) – a global digital platform that
would initially allow people to live video chat directly
with their sporting heroes. Morrison was a fan, but he
also knew a great many of the heroes.
“It was June 2020. People around the world were
isolating, and everyone was living and working from
home,” he recalls.
Zoom was just beginning to take off. Intrigued by
the opportunities the videoconferencing platform could
provide and inspired by former cricketers from his
club in Brisbane, Mitchell Johnson and Brendan Nash,
he thought: “Why not get some of these current and
former first class and test players on a call during my
cricket club’s core fitness sessions, for a Q&A?”
Morrison trialled the concept with several cricketers
attending Zoom sessions and then began working on
his pitchbook. The next step was to raise the funding
to ensure LassWho could deliver a global digital
platform with scalability to make anything possible –
from one-on-one live video chats to small groups (five
to 20 fans or business clients), large groups (schools