Kim Brennan AM
Website Kim Brennan

Kim Brennan AM

Olympic Rowing Gold

Kim Brennan won the Gold Medal in the Single sculls at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. Kim is a three-time Olympian, two-time World Champion and sixteen-time National Champion. In total, Kim won an Olympic Gold, Silver and Bronze.

Kim is a qualified legal practitioner in Advisory with Ernst & Young, specialising in ethical organisations and culture change in a technology-disrupted world.

Kim also sits on a number of key sporting bodies, including the Australian Institute of Sport Ethics Committee, and is Deputy Chair of the Rowing Australia Athletes’ Commission, as well as being appointed Deputy Chef de Mission for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

Kim is a Member of the Order of Australia for her contribution to sport and the community and was named in the Australian Financial Review’s Top 100 Women of Influence in 2018.

Born in Melbourne and the daughter of a VFL Footballer, Kim was raised into a very sporty Family. She commenced her elite sporting career as a track and field athlete. She finished second at the World Youth Championships in the 400m hurdles before injury forced her to give up on Olympic Athletics aspirations. Not to be thwarted, Kim took up rowing in 2005 and hasn’t looked back.

Kim made her first Australian team within 8 months of starting rowing and won a bronze medal in the women’s eight at the World Championships that year. While competing, Kim continued her Melbourne University Law Degree remotely, graduating with first class honours and winning the prize for top female graduate of her year. A disappointment at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 inspired Kim to bigger and better things – teaching her the power of continuous learning through both success and adversity. 

At the London Games, Kim was the only rower to compete in two separate Rowing events at the Olympics. Partnered with Brooke Pratley, the duo brought home a silver medal in the women’s double sculls, before Kim went on to claim a bronze in the single sculls. She was subsequently voted by her peers to the role of Chairperson of the Australian Olympic Committee Athletes’ Commission, working tirelessly to improve support to athletes off the field of play.

In 2013, Kim won her first World Championships gold medal in the single sculls and won the prestigious World Rower of the Year Award.

Kim finally added Olympic Gold to her collection when she claimed the top spot on the dais at the Rio 2016 Games, rowing in the women’s single sculls. That year she was awarded the Gina Rinehart Award for Leadership, the Australian Female Sportsperson of the Year, the Rowers’ Rower of the Year, the Female Rower of the Year, the ACT Sportsperson of the Year, the Victorian Sportsperson of the Year, the Women’s Health Sportsperson of the Year and the flag bearer at the Closing Ceremony of the Rio Olympic Games.

Kim married 2008 rowing gold medallist and doctor, Scott Brennan, in Hobart in 2015. They had their first child Jude Brennan in July 2018. Kim is an overachiever not only on the water, but also off it. She achieved a perfect score of 99.95 in her year 12 school results and went on to work as a lawyer specialising in sports and intellectual property law. In 2016 she was enticed across to EY to work in the growing field of technology advisory. There, Kim has led large scale technology implementation projects, taking a particular interest in the ethics of emerging technology and how to embrace innovation in a changing world. 

Kim currently sits on the Australian Olympic Committee Athletes’ Commission (Deputy Chair), AIS Ethics Committee, the Australian Olympic Committee High Performance Committee and the Rowing Australia Athletes’ Commission. She is an ambassador for the Worldwide Fund for Nature Clean Water Project in Kafue, Zambia, the Reach for Nepal Foundation and the Australian Drug Foundation Good Sports Program.

While at EY she founded a pilot program for employing current competing athletes on flexible work arrangements and was named one of Australia’s top 100 influential women by the Australian Financial Review in 2018.

Kim was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia in 2017. In 2019 Kim was appointed Assistant Chef de Mission for the Australian Olympic Team’s campaign at the Tokyo Olympic Games.

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