NEW MELBOURNE chief executive Cameron Schwab says the challenges that await him at the club are akin to what he faced when he joined Richmond in the late 1980s, Melbourne during the late 1990s and Fremantle in the early 2000s.

Schwab, who has accepted a three-year deal to head-up Melbourne, suggested it was perhaps no bigger challenge than what he has dealt with in the past, in terms of turning the club's finances and fortunes around.

"The next challenge always seems to be the biggest," Schwab said at the MCG on Monday.

"But I look back on it and I'm not sure how it compares with Richmond during the 'SOS' [Save Our Skins] era or coming to Melbourne immediately after its own members voted to merge or coming to Fremantle when it was $8 million in debt.

"There's a bit of a theme in all of that, isn't there?

"Without ever necessarily setting myself to be in that situation, perhaps that's what has ended up becoming my expertise.

"But the challenges facing Melbourne are severe and if anyone thinks it's some cynical means by which we generate a few bob, well, they mightn't be watching their footy club go around in however many years' time."

He was adamant the club is "absolutely" in survival mode at the moment. 

"There's no question and then ultimately that's about building a better business model, which sustains it, but the first phase is survival," Schwab said.

"Then over time it's about building a club, which can then sustain itself, without having to go and convince the AFL of the need to support it, the way that it does.

"It needs to be able to make its own way in the world."

Schwab said Melbourne's model for success would "boil down to the contribution of many people over an extended period of time".

"Melbourne's a unique footy club in that it grew out of this ground [the MCG] and not out of a suburb, so the solution for this club will be a unique one as well," Schwab said, adding that the MCG "must be at the heart of Melbourne's future", while acknowledging the "terrific opportunity" Casey Fields also represents as a training base.

"We'll be getting contributions from as many people as we can and that sounds like a fairly simplistic way of describing a business model, but that's what it requires.

"That then enables Dean and his team to focus on what they need to do to be a great football team – to produce champion players and champion football teams and that will obviously the objective.

"That will be compromised in the shorter term, because it has to be and securing the club actually requires that, but we can't be looking back in five years time and still compromising that aspect of the organisation."

Schwab said premierships were integral to the future of Melbourne.

"No doubt, this is about silverware as well, and I'll probably spend most of my working life with a chip on both shoulders, unless we actually manage to get one of those in the cabinet," Schwab said.

"But what that requires is sustained, good business and good business decision-making and that's the focus."