Dinner Speaker
Mark Sorenson
Mark Sorenson coached the Black Sox to victory in 2017 at the Softball World Championship in Canada and Silver in 2015. Following the 2017 win, Mark was awarded World Coach of the Year by the World Baseball Softball Council.
Previous experience
He was the captain of the New Zealand Men’s Softball Team, the Black Sox, from 1989 until the beginning of 2001 and led his team to victory at the world championships in 1996 and 2000. He returned to the team in 2004 when they became the first team ever to win three consecutive Softball World Championships.
Awards
Named Wellington Sportsman of the Year three times and three times New Zealand Softball player of the year and received a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
Mark has been selected 12 times to the ‘All World Team’ by the International Softball Congress, which was a world record. He was selected six times consecutively to the ‘All American Team’ at the USA Nationals and voted the tournament’s Most Valuable Player twice.
To cap his successful sporting career, Mark recently claimed the No 51 spot in the book, NZ’s 100 Top History Makers in Sport. In his 18-year career, he’s played over 300 games with a lifetime ISF Batting average .405 with 15 Homeruns in World Championship play 1984 – 2004. From there he was also inducted into the NZ Sports Hall of Fame in 2016.
In 2009, he was inducted into both the International Softball Federation Hall of Fame and the International Softball Congress Hall of Fame. He’s only the 2nd Kiwi to be inducted into both World bodies.
Current work
Mark has held many senior management positions in sales, human resources and project management and has acted as a youth worker and sports ambassador for NZ police and Sport Wellington region.
Mark’s presentations are both inspirational and entertaining. The Black Sox are arguably one of New Zealand’s most successful sports teams – Mark shares the insights into how they achieve success – using discipline, dedication and culture vs strategy as tools to success!