CATS CEO Brian Cook says the club signed Chris Scott with an eye on the future as its plans for life after the ‘big three’ in the midfield.

Cook told RSN 927 that the decision to re-sign Scott to a long-term deal was a good and responsible decision.

“We just need a coach who’s going to make decisions for the next five years not the next five weeks,” he said.

“We’ve been negotiating with Chris not for long, maybe maximum three months really and we spoke about a long-term relationship… we need to plan for the post Ablett, Dangerfield and Selwood era now. We can’t wait until it simply falls upon us.

“We’ve had meetings every weekend for a little while now to talk about the next three, four, five years, and Chris is a part of all of those.”

The Cats chief executive believes Scott is the right man to have at the helm as Geelong’s list faces a transition ahead.

“There are a lot of personal qualities that I like about Chris. He’s passionate, energetic, strong values, people trust him, there’s a lot of whole of club things I like about him from a management point of view,” Cook said.

“He sees the big picture, has a commercial focus then you get down to cultural development. He understands the culture of Geelong and he is a developer of it which is really important."

Cook said Scott would be judged on his ability to take the Cats to the top reaches of the ladder as well as continuing to develop the Cats' young crop of talent.

“For us it’s top four each year in terms of the high level KPI, but then there are other KPIs. They revolve a lot around our list.”

"We have a list management strategy and out of that falls what sort of coaches we need, what sort of strategies we need, what sort of on-field tactics we use given the list we have.”