Danielle Smith is currently the CEO of Sunshine Coast Lightning which forms part of the Melbourne Storm Group. Lightning participates in the world’s best netball league, Suncorp Super Netball.

Her career spans more than 25 years working across a broad range of industries including sport, major events, management consulting, consumer products and chartered accounting.  After commencing her career with big four advisory firm KPMG, Danielle’s career has included senior roles with NRL club Melbourne Storm, Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games, AFL club Geelong Cats and global whitegoods giant, Whirlpool.

Danielle has been with the Melbourne Storm group for 11 years in a variety of roles including Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Board Director, Company Secretary and CEO of Lightning. In 2022, she was awarded Life Membership for her outstanding values and contribution to the group.

Danielle relocated to Queensland 6 years ago to take on Lightning’s inaugural CEO role experiencing immediate success including winning back-to-back premierships in the club’s first two seasons of 2017 and 2018, making it the most successful professional sporting club start-up in Australian history.

The club has been equally successful off the court with a blue-chip portfolio of international, national and local sponsors, a solid membership and fan base, sell-out matches at UniSC Arena since inception, and become a leader in several key sport and entertainment industry benchmarks.

Danielle is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors program (GAICD), a chartered accountant (CA) with CAANZ, and holds a Bachelor of Commerce (BCom) and Bachelor of Arts (BA) from Monash University.