The Swim School Edge 2026 expert speaker line up. Get fresh perspectives to build stronger, more successful swim schools.
Keynote speaker: John Mitchell, Director, Delta Gymnastics "Systems make us good. People make us great."
That's the line John Mitchell has spent thirty-five years earning. He started at university studying physiotherapy - and it lasted 30 days. He moved to business management, and that lasted one semester. He moved on to learning from books and industry leaders, and he says he is now right in the middle of a lifetime of learning.
Keynote 1: Strategy: Building a Moat in a Pool
How to build a sustainable competitive advantage — and actually execute it.
Most swim schools compete on timetable, price, and pool temperature. That's not a strategy — that's a shopping list. In this session John unpacks what a real competitive advantage looks like in a children's activity business and why most operators never build one.
Drawing on thirty years of building — and nearly losing — a multi-site youth enrichment business, plus lessons learned from a government-backed research program into why kids drop out of sport, John will challenge the room to think past the next intake and ask the harder question: what are we actually building here, and why does it matter....
Takeaways:
The difference between a busy business and a defensible one
Why "people-focused and data-driven" is the only moat that compounds
How to translate strategic intent into weekly execution without losing the humanity that got you into this industry
Keynote 2: Transforming the Team That Transforms the Kids
Why your team is the product — and how to lead one worth staying for.
In a Learn to Swim business, the quality of the experience walks out the door every afternoon at 6pm. Your instructors are your product. So why do most operators spend more time on marketing than on the people who actually deliver the thing being marketed?
John will share how Delta transformed from a founder-dependent business into one where the team drives the growth — the hard lessons, the systems that made it repeatable, and the shift in the founder's own role that had to happen first. This is not a session on rostering or retention hacks. It's a session on what it takes to lead people who will outgrow the job you hired them for, and why that's the goal.
Takeaways:
Why systems make us good and people make us great
The leadership shift required to move from being the expert to building experts
How to measure what actually matters in your team's growth, not just their attendance
About John
At 21 he walked into a struggling little not-for-profit gym club and decided to change the way gymnastics was done in Australia. By his late twenties he'd built seven gyms, four physio practices, a rehab company, volleyball centres and a merchandise range . . . and very nearly lost the lot. The undisciplined pursuit of more, he calls it now. It's the teacher most of us would rather not have.
What he rebuilt with his wife Megan is Delta Sports: eight gymnastics clubs, three paediatric clinics for neurodivergent children, and more than 6,000 kids through the doors every week. The work earned them Westpac Small Business of the Year, The Summit's Pacific Crest Award for contribution to the industry, and Outstanding Contribution recognition from the International Association of Childhood Development Programs.
John sits on the board of Gymnastics Clubs Australia and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He now also runs a SaaS company built for the Youth Enrichment Industry bringing everything he has learned into a system that can be replicated consistently. Through that platform he is currently part of a government-backed research program into keeping kids in sport. One that has already more than halved dropout rates in gymnastics, with research now underway into how the same approach can be applied in Learn to Swim.
He loves learning. He loves sharing what he's learned. And he's convinced that an industry that wants to keep kids engaged has to be both people-focused and data-driven - not one or the other.
Goldie Feinberg, Clarity Architect. Leading Yourself First: Clarity, Confidence, and Connection in Leadership
Goldie will present two 45-minute sessions on ‘leading yourself first’ as well as offering bonus ‘clarity clinics’ during break times.
Leading Yourself First: Clarity, Confidence, and Connection in Leadership: two 45-minute sessions
Running a swim school, a gymnastics club, or any business built around kids and families is people work, all the way down. The families, the staff, the culture you're trying to hold together while also trying to grow something. It's genuinely demanding, and most of the hard bits don't come with a manual.
This session is a practical look at the stuff that doesn't always get talked about: what happens to your thinking when pressure goes up, how to get on the same page with people who operate very differently to you, and how to make a call when everything feels equally important.
The first session focuses on you: your patterns, what steadies you, what throws you off, and how to lead from a clearer place even on the hard days. There's a short live demonstration that tends to land well.
The second session is more outward: understanding the different people in your team, having the conversations you've been putting off, and finding a bit more ease in the decision-making.
What you'll take away:
A better understanding of your own patterns under pressure
A simple way to work with the different personalities in your team
A practical tool for decisions when everything feels urgent
A framework for the conversations you've been putting off
A bit more confidence in how you show up
The reminder that everyone else in the room is working through similar things
Clarity Clinics - bonus 1:1 sessions during the breaks
During the breaks, Goldie is offering a small number of short, private sessions:15 to 20 minutes each. If there's something specific on your mind, a situation you're not quite sure how to handle, or a decision you keep going around in circles on, bring it along. These sessions are free for everyone attending.
About Goldie
Goldie has spent her career being genuinely curious about people. Not in a theoretical way. In a what's-actually-going-on-for-this-person way.
"It's never really about the strategy or the system. It's always about the people inside it."
She studied behavioural studies, commerce, and management, but the real learning happened on the job. She's worked in startups where everything was uncertain and everyone was figuring it out as they went. In large organisations where the complexity never stopped. In hospitality, where she got very good at reading a room. In the not-for-profit world, where people show up because they care, full stop. And in some rooms where the stakes were high and discretion mattered.
What she kept noticing, across all of it, was this: when things get difficult, it’s rarely about the plan. It’s about what’s happening for the people carrying it. The clarity that goes missing. The confidence that wobbles quietly. The conversations that keep getting pushed to later.
Her work is about that space. Helping people understand themselves a bit better, communicate more easily with the people around them, and make good decisions even when things feel messy.
