Tennis Auckland has been without a CEO since Marcus Reynolds resigned late last year and without a tournament director since Karl Budge stepped down in early February.
Vannini says they have commenced the recruitment process for the CEO's job which will be formally advertised on the 12th of April with a view to have someone in place by the first of July.
Budge brought a strong sense of business acumen and a background and knowledge of the tennis world to his tournament director role, which helped result in tremendous growth both financially and in the quality of the player field's year on year.
Vannini has acknowledged they can't replace a like for like and the Board has decided to split the tournament director's role, with the new CEO taking responsibility for the financial side of the tournaments, leaving the new tournament director to focus on player recruitment and running the events.
Tennis Auckland has decided not to advertise for Budge's replacement and instead has begun a process of headhunting for the role. Vannini says he's been contacted by a number of potential candidates.
"These include professional tournament directors based overseas who have indicated an interest and I have also had helpful feedback from Karl himself, a shortlist of his own around who he thinks would be suitable for the role going forward," Vannini said.
"So we are very confident there are a lot of people out there who would be very suitable to carry out the role, in particular around player recruitment which is the key piece we need to get right for the tournaments. That's fitting in with our overall time frames of not only getting a new CEO but filling the tournament director role within the next couple of months."
Pre covid-19 it was normal for Budge to have a number of star recruits locked in by June for the following year's tournaments and there is a sense whoever gets the role will be starting behind the eight ball.
However the nature of player contracting has changed since the advent of Covid with players not necessarily committing to tournaments as early as they used to.
"We are very confident the kind of people we are looking for the tournament director role will have the kind of contacts and networks that is going to enable us to get the right people. (Players) Vannini said.
"Having said that we are looking very hard at starting the recruitment process soon so we can start announcing some players and building up confidence for everyone that we are fully committed to staging tournaments in January 2022."
New Zealand's borders remain closed and it's unclear how long managed quarantine will be required for all entries. With the tournaments due to start at the beginning of January and players traditionally arriving in late December Vannini could be excused for feeling a little apprehensive, but he's not.
"We think the world is going to be in a much better place as we head into the second half of this year compared to where we were placed heading into the second half of last year. Obviously it was the uncertainty elements last year that was one of the key drivers for us not being able to run tournaments. We think things are changing rapidly in particular in professional sports and things are heading in the right direction and we want to be positioned so we are able to run the tournaments in the same way we have in previous years."
