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Sport for Business
Sport for Business
Teaching Talent To Speak For Itself
Let us know what’s on your mind
We explore how the Teneo Accelerate programme helps young female athletes build brand, social, commercial, and media skills, pairing practical training with year-round support. Ellen shares growth from an Irish pilot to a European footprint, plus candid lessons on online safety and contract literacy.
• Why the programme exists and who it serves
• Cohort growth from three to six athletes across Europe
• Selection through sporting bodies and NGBs
• Four pillars: brand, social, commercial, media
• Contract basics, agent choices, and sponsorship fit
• Social media strategy, LinkedIn for athletes, and safety
• Media training for live hits, profiles, and crises
• Personality, purpose, and causes beyond sport
• Expansion plans across European offices
• Personal quickfire: sport, culture, books, and food
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Hello, good morning, and welcome to the new week. This is the Sport for Business Daily Podcast. It is Monday, December the 1st, and we are joined today by Ellen McConville-Boyd, one of the team at NaOC, that has been putting together a really exciting program, Accelerator, where they have been giving their expertise and their sense of experience and knowledge and understanding of communication and sponsorship to a group in the first year and a second group in the second year of young female athletes. It's a fascinating conversation about how the professional world can be imposed upon the life of an elite sports person and tells us very well. So lean back, make a couple coffee for yourself and enjoy.com. If you want to find out more, please do visit us at the website or sign up, subscribe, comment, and share wherever you get your podcast from. So we're sitting here in the offices of Tonail on Hatch Street. I'm delighted to be in the company of Ellen McConville Boyd, freshly minted new name, freshly returned from a wonderful wedding. You're very welcome onto the Sports for Business Podcast.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you very much, Rob. Thank you for having me. What a lovely return to work.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. First of all, I guess you had a great wedding. I had a fantastic wedding.
SPEAKER_03:I really did. It was quite a busy weekend, both personally and professionally. I uh somehow got married the same weekend of the NFL game. Um so I was very busy ahead of finishing up for the wedding. Um, but uh when I did finish up, we had the most fantastic day from start to finish. I think anybody who's been married will know the feeling of love that you have that day from everybody there. Um, nothing really prepares you for it until you experience it, but it was just a really, really fantastic day. So back to Porridge now, but very happy.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm sure that when Aaron Rodgers was throwing some of those touchdown passes, he was thinking of the fact that Ellen is out there having a great day anyway. I'm sure. Same date, same date as I got married as well, albeit a few years apart. But a great day. We've been we've been uh putting this conversation on hold for uh for for a short while now, but it was something that we kept on wanting to come back to. The Tineo Accelerate programme was created a year ago in order to give a helping hand or a leg up to young female sports stars, and that's what we're here to talk about today. Tell us a little bit about the motivation behind it and what was it that made the organisation think this is a good thing for us to do?
SPEAKER_03:Well, like you say, it was launched last year in 2024, and the Taneo Sports Advisory team came up with the initiative of the Taneo Accelerate Programme, which would be a programme that would help educate young females with a view to basically fast-tracking their commercial opportunities beyond their field of sport or play. Um for us in Taneo, we are very involved in women's sport through our our own client work and our research. As you know, we do the Taneo Sport and Sponsorship Index each year, and there is a section on that which looks at women's sport. Um, and obviously, then through our fortunate client work, we do a lot with female athletes and a lot to promote women's sport. And it was born out of the idea of what can we as a company do to really, I guess, stand over the work that we do and the message that we helped promote through our own communication and strategy work that we we wanted to come up with something that would, I guess, you know, really rubber stamp to now as a supporter of women's sport. And we had a think about what we could possibly do, and we you know have a team of experts in here across various different divisions within the company. And that then came and the Tenero Accelerate Programme was born out of that thinking that we could maybe use some of our expertise that we have in-house to educate and help young female athletes out there to get them ready for their maybe career beyond their sport of play, or you know, when they finish off, that they have the expertise needed to have an everlasting career.
SPEAKER_00:But also, I guess because they're they're very active athletes as well, so also helping them when they come out of the pool or off the track or off the pitch, so that all of those different elements of their own personal brand, their social presence, their their media capabilities and things like that. How did you go about selecting athletes that you thought you could make a difference for?
SPEAKER_03:Well, last year was the first year, so if you could do the first year or something, you you don't try and do too much. We we aim to have three participants on board in the first year, and we are very fortunate to now to have really good strong relationships with lots of sporting bodies, and um, you know, we work a lot with Sport Ireland as well. So we had contacted some of those um I was gonna call them rights holders as such, but working me getting used to calling them that, but those sporting bodies um NGBs to see did they have anybody that they would like to put forward. You know, we didn't we didn't contact the athlete directly, we went to their their sports. So we had spoken with a few, and um in the first year last year, we were very fortunate to work with Sarah Burden, the golfer, Roshin Nirane, the paraswimmer, and Mikhail Waltch, the boxer. Um so we had spoken with their sporting bodies to see if they would like to put anyone forward. So they were our first uh inaugural, I suppose, as you'd say, participants in the Chineo Accelerate programme. Um, and we we worked with them in the first year and it was it was very successful. I think they got a lot out of it, we got a lot out of it. We did a feedback session at the end of the year and decided that this was definitely something we wanted to continue to grow and um carry into following years. So, you know, when you when you start something you always try and build on it. So this year we had the aim of increasing participation and having more athletes involved. We went from three to six, um, which you know is is quite the increase, 50%.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um and further to that, we we still want to still have Irish athletes involved, but in Toneo, you know, we're we're a global company, but we're also a European company as well. And we in Taneo Ireland are part of Toneo Europe, and we have very strong relations with our colleagues throughout all our offices in Europe. Um, so we worked with our colleagues in Paris and in Brussels to identify maybe some athletes beyond Ireland that would like to get involved. So we have six athletes taking part this year. We have nearly just finished the programme. Our final session was just before the NFL Madness in September there. But this year we have um Anya Donnegan, the golfer, Grace Fitzpatrick Ryan, the footballer, we have Kitty O'Brien, the Paralympic rower, and Ruth Campbell, the um rugby player, all Irish young female athletes. And then we also have Bastien, who is a footballer from Belgium, and we have Jean Ricard, who is a bi-athlete from France as well. So that was definitely a new element to the programme this year where we expanded beyond these shores and brought in um international athletes, which was was was brilliant to be honest, to see it grow like that.
SPEAKER_00:And uh Sarah Byrne, just looking back to last year, like Sarah Byrne, what a great year to actually have her do the course as well. Yeah, she shone on the uh on the Curse Cup team, both on the course but also afterwards, like her personality really shone through and and and put Irish golf onto a onto a global stage and then turning professional coming off the back of that as well.
SPEAKER_03:And when we were working with her, we knew that was coming. So all the advice and the prep that we were given in the the training sessions had that in mind that Sarah was probably about to go from amateur into professional, and how could we give her advice and offer our expertise from the maybe more commercial digital brand media training side that we have that would would help her ahead of that decision you know that she was making?
SPEAKER_00:Because when you were a young athlete, these are the kind of things that they're there on the sidelines somewhere if you're really achieving a high level of achievement uh you know in your sport, but not necessarily the kind of things that you have somebody that you can lean on.
SPEAKER_03:And that comes probably later in the career that you know are are after more success that you you get an agent, people start to come and they want to work with you, but when you're in the very early stages of your career, when you're maybe still in college, you're you know maybe not professional yet, or you're about to turn it, you know that probably lies ahead of you in the future, but you might not have the um the knowledge of what's involved in some of those commercial decisions until you get that agent. And that was one of our aims to to help those young girls have the expertise that we can offer them and help them educate them on ahead of those things happening for them. So from the early onset of their career that they were primed and ready to go.
SPEAKER_00:And it's not only the knowledge of what questions to ask, but it's who to ask them of as well, because Taneo doesn't have an athlete representation arm, so you're not crashing in on top of it, you're not doing this in order to actually gain a competitive advantage as such, you're doing it for the right reasons to be good for those athletes.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely. I think you know, when we came to the decision of um creating the program, you look at what we can offer, and what we can offer is what we're really good at, you know, our divisions, our our expertise, our our capabilities and our professionalism. And we're really lucky that within the company we have such a diverse mix of talented people who can offer that out, you know. That if say if we were delivering our digital session, if one person wasn't available, well, there's another person that can do just the job. We've had a great bunch in here of really talented uh individuals that were, you know, when we when we obviously communicated it internally, people were really, really supportive and really keen to be involved as well, which is excellent.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and the four pillars, the four key areas that you're looking at. Uh you've mentioned about the commercial side of it and the ability to understand what contracts are. What are what are the other areas?
SPEAKER_03:The first session is on the brand, or the the the athlete as a brand, I suppose. So we sign the girls up, we you know, obviously introduce ourselves and say, Do you want to take part in this? and give them a brief overview of what it is. Thankfully, everyone has said yes. Um, and we have then a short introduction session because you know yourself when you join a meeting or a call and there's new faces and people you don't know, and you know, you you kind of want them to feel as comfortable, as welcome as possible, and know that this is a really engaging programme that we want to hear from them, we want to hear their thoughts, their opinions, their their views, everything. Um so we have that, and then the first session is around uh the brand and developing your brand, and that is obviously led by our brand team. Um do athletes understand that?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, do young people generally when when you're on LinkedIn, there's any number of people that will advise you on your branding and your own personal brand and everything like that. But it's it's kind of a bit esoteric that people don't really understand necessarily what your personal brand is.
SPEAKER_03:I don't want to speak for them because I'm not I'm not a young athlete, but I would say they do understand it. They just haven't maybe given thought to what they could do with it or how they could grow it. I think they know, I think anybody in the public eye knows that they are uh you know a a public-facing person and a brand in themselves. So I think they definitely have an element and understanding of what that is, but they probably just haven't sat down and given the thoughts of what can I actually do to further this, grow this, you know, make this into who I am. And it's so much more than me, the athlete. Who am I as a person? What am I interested in? What where do I want to go? Who do I want to work with? What can I become basically? Um, so I do think they have an understanding, but our session aims to just I guess develop that understanding and then get them to start maybe execute it as well. Um, so that's our first session, and it was led by Andy Andy Grant this year, who's a senior managing director on our brand team, and she delivered that first session, and it gets them talking amongst themselves as well, you know. That we do it's like almost going back in school a little bit where you're like, here's an interactive slide, we want to hear your thoughts. But once they get warmed up, you know, it it leads to a fun engaging session there.
SPEAKER_00:And and a lot of them are competing in individual sports, so they might not necessarily have that ability to actually reach out to find others that are in a similar situation to them.
SPEAKER_03:Very much so. Um, and the second session then is around social and their social media presence, um, how to best use your social channels and utilize them, how to maybe attract partnerships and but also remain true and authentic to yourself online, but then also how to deal with some of the challenges that can come with being online. I think understandably anyone maybe young in their career would feel a wee bit fearful or maybe not want to, you know, put themselves fully out there because of what my people say, what my people think. I think anybody would feel that way anyway, never mind being an athlete. Um, but just to help them understand uh, I guess the actual mechanics of posting and uh you know engagement rates and things like that, but also how to I guess promote that brand that they have then online and how to maybe deal with some challenges that come with it too. Um that's always a really engaging session. Um, like you said about LinkedIn there, um Nicola on our digital team, Nicola Halloran, our managing director who led that session, did a whole section on LinkedIn because when young people think of social media channels, you know, they don't they don't understandably think of that. But you know, an athlete themselves as a business and almost an entrepreneur, and if you're looking to grow a commercial partnership or attract sponsors, like that can be a really beneficial channel too. So, like that's just a flavour of some of the stuff that we cover in that session to get them to start to think about you know, what can they do? Um, really encouraging afterwards as well. Two of them came forward and asked for help in growing their channels then and asking, you know, have said, I wanted to do this, but I just don't really know how. And we then give them one-to-one sessions um with some of our digital team around their Instagram channels and their TikToks and stuff. So that's part of the benefit to the programme, too, as well. That if you participate, you obviously are involved in the sessions and the educational sessions, but you have access to Chineo throughout the whole year from anything that you might need help with. So whether it be your social channels or you know, whether you have a contract that you would like to be reviewed and like some advice, or you're going into a meeting with a potential agent and you want to think what are the questions, and those are all real scenarios, you know. Though I'm quoting those because those are things that actually did happen with some of the athletes afterwards, where they asked for help and advice on it, which we very gladly give, you know. So that's that's part of the benefit to the programme, too, that they've accessed us at any time that they want to help with.
SPEAKER_00:And if Sarah or Oonia in particular go on and become multiple major winners, they might feel comfortable about coming back and asking for a little bit of advice then as well. You'd be happy to give.
SPEAKER_03:100%, they'd be more than welcome. Those are the first two sessions, though, grant and digital. Then the third is commercial, which is delivered um by my old team, by the sports advisory team. And that that looks at our bread and butter, as I would say to you, Rob. That looks at the commercial landscape, who are who to look out for, who are the sponsors out there, who could you possibly work with, how to really maximise those opportunities and create partnerships, and how to then, you know, there's a bit more of the actual tangible nitty-gritty of contract negotiations, when to work with an agent, when you might not want to work with one, what are the pros and cons, like all the backs and forths and that, what to look out for. So, you know, things that they probably had loads of questions on that they didn't know who to ask or say when you're at that early stage of your career, and we always see that in those sessions that the questions come and where they're at answering. And it's it's really it's a really fun session, and it's really beneficial to them because we can offer all the stuff that you know, all the expertise that we know that can benefit them. And then the final one is media training. Um, we normally prefer to do media training in person, um, but just with the nature of sex athletes, and you know, and and Anya was and Sarah last year were both in the States as well, so you're looking at time differences. But we can always do it virtually and break do different breakout rooms and things like that. But the real aim for that session is to get them equipped with the eventualities of really dealing with the media, and who do we deal with all the time, and that can range from a relaxed chat to maybe pit side or pool side or courtside straight after, you know, when you come out and the adrenaline's through and you're either disappointed or you're happy, or how to deal with crises as well, you know, that you don't like to think about them, but you know, here's some scenarios where we kind of ask them what would you do in this situation, how would you manage this, or then like a profiling piece, you know, a sit-down interview like this? How would you prepare for a 30-minute chat with someone that again is promoting your brand and who you are? So that's our final one that we always close out with, then as well, media training.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so you've had nine athletes now that have gone through the programme, and you've got a lot out of it, they've got a lot out of it. Um, the future, this is something which is going to carry on within the Toneo remit?
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely, I would think so. Um we've seen great success in it this year, um, from from participation to feedback. Um, it's obviously the first year last year, it grew this year. It would be our intention to grow it again next year and and keep it going because as a business it feels very nice to give that back, you know. We work with young athletes all the time in our client work, but if you can actually benefit them through what we do, it's a very nice feeling. So um we've seen just great results from it, really. We've seen great participation. We know from even dealing with the sporting bodies that have put the girls forward, some good feedback coming through there as well. Um, where will it go in Europe next year? I don't know. I think that was something we were very proud to grow this year on with a French and Belgian athlete participating. Um, we have offices in Madrid and we have um German offices as well. So I think we would probably look to expand that footprint even further. We just might have to split them into two sessions. Might have to do two brand sessions, two social sessions, you know. That's yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_00:But that's but that's fine, and maybe some of those will be in person as well.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know if you saw the athletes' diaries, if that could be possible, we'll see.
SPEAKER_00:That can be pretty chaotic, all right. Um tell me something. The the sort of the spread, I'm guessing that if somebody has been nominated to benefit from this and have then accepted it, that they tend to be more of uh an outgoing personality that they would be comfortable with this within this environment. Or has there been a mix because sometimes it's nicer, like it's a it's very much of a bubble world, isn't it? Being a high performance athlete when you're at a very young age in your in your regular life, you're very young.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Whereas when you're out there competing on a a European or a world stage or even a national stage, you're you're carrying an awful lot of expectation and you're carrying an awful lot of weight. And that can sometimes be quite stifling. But does it does it make a difference as to the personality type that's coming in? Are they more likely to benefit if they've already reached the second floor, for example, in their in their personal branding?
SPEAKER_02:Say it again. If you don't mind, is that okay?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, I'll just yeah, 211. Um when athletes are put forward for this, or when they put themselves forward for it, you would imagine that they would tend to be the more outgoing personality. They're the ones that would stand tallest in the in the room of their peers, they're the ones that would have perhaps the brightest smile or the quickest wit. Are they always going to be the ones that put themselves forward for this, or do you find that it can sometimes be of even greater assistance to bring somebody to that level?
SPEAKER_03:The latter I would say, yeah. Um I it's we don't pick them. We we like I said, we go to the sporting bodies and ask ask the coaches or management to put someone forward, so that's ultimately made by the team behind the athlete or the sporting body who maybe is picking someone who would most benefit from it. I wouldn't say we have anybody coming in who is fully primed and ready to go in front of media and is a huge personality. Naturally, when you have a group of people together, there might be some who are a wee bit more talkative or you know, uh but they help carry, they maybe get others involved then as well. Um but I wouldn't say that we have, you know, I don't know if that's someone who is primed and ready to go because that's not the objective of the programme, or looking at someone who's much younger in their career, who doesn't have as much media experience or hasn't really worked with an awful lot of sponsors before, or you know, has Instagram, but maybe just uses it privately for personal use and hasn't maybe thought about creating an ethnic one as well. Um so that that's our aim with the the programme to give them those tools to help them along the way. If they're if they're bubbly, brilliant, or if they're shyer, brilliant as well, because we can work with them no matter what the person. I wouldn't say there's anybody coming in who's like the loudest, most experienced person in the room because that's not the aim of the programme, really, you know. Um all of them have been lovely girls to work with. Everybody naturally is a wee bit shy at first, and you don't know who you're speaking with, and you know, we're a company that they've not worked with before, and they've kind of said yes, we'll do this, but they don't really know what's involved. But when they chat to us and realize we're just humans as well, and we're here for basically some advice and some tips to help them and propel them and make them better.
SPEAKER_00:And they're all that same age category as well, they're all kind of you know, 18, 19, 20 in the early stages of their very much so, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:We've we've had people join from university dorms and libraries and stuff like that. And it makes me feel very old, Rob, to be honest with you, because I feel like that was two years ago as opposed to a lot longer.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um, but they're in the early stages of their career, um, and yeah, they're they're really inspiring. They're even what they've achieved already in their their young years, and I don't mean that in a patronizing way, but then the early stages of their career is so inspiring, and there's so much potential there beyond what they actually achieve. What they achieve is down to them. But if we can help them, whether it be through a punditry gig or speaking opportunities or a partnership or just a really good media interview, that gets a lot of attention that they're prepared for, that's our that's our overall aim.
SPEAKER_00:And I guess over the last 10 years or more, uh social media has changed the nature of the game for athletes, for for all young people. Everybody now has got a greater capacity to tell their story to be out there in the world to a point which could only have been dreamed about by generations that went beforehand, because you know, one large television camera has now been replaced by the smartphone which is in every everybody's pocket. Do you imagine that that's going to change even more? Like as you know, we're getting to a point now where you know where the athletes that are coming forward have grown up entirely in the smartphone era. You know, YouTube is only 15 years old, but at the same time, all of these athletes that are coming through have never really known a world without it. So do you think is that is that going to change and are we going to get are we going to get more uh you know rounded individuals that are ready to actually sort of take the next steps, which is what Tanao Accelerator is going to give them?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, like what what what trends and technologies will be there in 10 years? I haven't a clue. You haven't a clue. You know, even before we went into the pandemic, TikTok wasn't a thing, and now it's the biggest platform, especially amongst the stage group that we're speaking with, you know. Like we've had to alter that in inside, um, sorry, not inside, but internally, uh, you know, in our own social strategies, like in recent years we've seen that become much more prominent when we're we're speaking to Gen Z. So what it will look like, I haven't a clue, but I definitely think people are very savvy at be uh, you know, at having an online presence. I also just think though it's it's a really fun way to show their personalities, and you know, when we're talking about them building a brand or having an online presence. When athletes went to the Olympics last year and we saw them in their dorms and trying on their kit or you know, doing little dances and stuff like that. That was never done done before. It was almost like you had an exclusive insight into their world, and I think that's a really nice thing. I think it can help build you know connectivity and rapport with your your followers, but also people who are following you in your sport and build a relationship. So, you know, it comes with challenges, absolutely, being online, like yeah, everybody knows that. But our aim is to to help them give them the tools to to build those online presents and deal with those challenges should they face them.
SPEAKER_00:Do do you cover that? Do you cover the the darker side of social media, the you know, the pylons, the uh you know, the criticism of somebody's body shape or of the way that somebody performed in one particular event that people seem to think that they have the ability to castigate an individual for that?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. We would be doing a disservice, to be honest, if we didn't cover the realities of what we're talking about. Um and the same with media as well, you know, we we cover crisis, crisis comms because nobody likes to think it will happen them, but then someday it might, and you know, that we'd want them to know that they can contact now if they need any help or advice on that. Um, but yeah, we absolutely do. We we cover you know how to deal with trolls, how to kind of block out maybe some of the noise and when to engage and when to not engage as well, most importantly. And we would never tell anybody what you should and shouldn't say online, like that is completely someone's choice. But we do cover, you know, here's what to expect if you put your hat into the ring you want to go into, you know, that you to get them thinking about those things because everybody's young and online at one point and might have a regret along the way, or you know, maybe not have thought fully about the wider implications. So um, yeah, we we cover all of it with them to be honest, to try and help them as much as we can to get them ready for you know whatever whatever it is that uh is ahead of their career.
SPEAKER_00:And that could include stepping outside of their comfort zone, stepping outside of their ability as a swimmer, an athlete, a golfer, a footballer into areas where they can make a difference in people's lives. So everybody has everybody knows somebody who might have gone through a tragedy or who might have gone through an illness. And if they choose to to use the power they have as a uh you know, as a as a personal brand to actually step into that, is that something which you think that you would be able to encourage them or able to support them in doing that?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, absolutely. Um we cover that in in the brand session and in the social session of you know, you're more than just the athlete, you're you're your own person, you have your own interests, hobbies, concerns, causes, you know, and if there's if there's something you want to get involved in, or if there's something you really like. Like we always use the example of Peter Romani with the gardening, because that's that's just an insight into who he is, and everybody knows him as the rugby captain and the accomplished rugby player. But look what has come off the back of that for him, you know. So if there's something that you feel really passionate about, that's who you are, and don't be afraid to put that online. And you know, you might get this or you might get that, but here's how you can do it in a way that might lead to further opportunities for you, or you know, you like you could lead to charity work or something like that, like you say, if they feel very passionate about a cause, and our whole objective with the sessions is to get them to weigh up, you know, if you want. To do that, if you want to get involved, here's what to expect. You could get more work, you could get criticized, you know, not everybody might like it, but that's okay because if that's who you are and identically who you are, and that's what you want to get involved in, then here's how you can build it, then online or our through your three-year-old partial brand.
SPEAKER_00:Well, look, it's a great idea. Um, oftentimes we kind of think about these things when athletes are coming towards the end of their careers and transitioning, it becomes much more urgent for them. But if you've been able to encourage and assist an athlete at the age of 20 to think about things which they might not even necessarily get to use properly until they get to 10 years older than that, then that's got to be a good thing. So uh so congratulations on that to the whole Taneo team. And I know that there are many that go into the to the making of this. Um, before I let you go, I just always like to finish off these interviews with a few um you know more personal questions to get inside who Ellen McCartell Boyd is, as opposed to just the uh just the job.
SPEAKER_02:So that's what I've just been saying to show the athletes more than who they are rather than just their own.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. Now you have to walk the walk as well as just talking the talk. Um tell me what's the what's your first sporting memory as a child?
SPEAKER_03:My first sporting memory is being brought up to Clanabana Club in County Down with my dad, like many people. Um that probably would have been 1999 or 2000. County Down had won two All Irelands in the 90s as well, so we were on a high, and I think I was about three or four, I was very little, and the manager at the time, his nickname was Rusty because he had red hair, and I appreciate this as not a visual podcast, but I also have red hair, so everyone in the club used to call me Wee Rusty, even though I wasn't his daughter, I was Damian's daughter, yeah. Um, but I thought that was so funny, and everyone doted on me. And the pitch um is beside a school, and the balls during the matches used to get kicked in to um the the school next door, and the gate was there was a slight bend in one of the gates, and Rusty used to go and pull it apart, and I used to slip in. You needed somebody small as you needed someone very tiny, needed a child, and I was sent in to get the balls, and I felt like I was a VIP, I felt like I was the most supportive person. Um, and I was saying to you before this recording started, I I lost my dad three years ago, and it is one of my fondest memories um going up to that club with him. And at the time, when we were talking on the theme of women's sport, it wasn't where it is now, but it is so great to see where it is now. Um I played up to under 12, and then unfortunately that was it. There was no there was no progression. But my sister plays on um the mothers and others team in that club, and I play in one in Belfast. I play for Breda now, which isn't my home club, but I I don't live in Banbridge anymore, but I play there, and I'm so thankful to him for instilling that love with us as children and taking us to matches, and it was a huge part as many as many Irish people's lives was a huge part of our our family and our culture and our life. But that was my first time experiencing sport, and I sometimes think it kind of led me to where I am now in the job that I do that it was just that was just it. The paper was read back to Front in our house, the news was always on, sport was always there, and I don't know if I would have ended up here if it wasn't for that, but um that wasn't even me participating, that was just my earliest memory of going to anything that involved sport was going up with him and having to fleck involves.
SPEAKER_00:And your dad would have done that because that was just the thing that people did. And if you're a a young parent listening to this, then just do it. Just bring your kids to sport, get them involved. Oh, thank you. And try and think every now and again that what you do with them when they're three and four years old will come back and be recounted in interviews 20 odd years old.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I'm I'm 30 in three weeks, and I think he would laugh at me being on a mothers and others kicking a ball a whole like nearly 18 years later since I'd kicked one, but it was still in there, and it's great.
SPEAKER_03:Anybody who's doing mothers and others will tell you I am another, I'm not a mother. But there's lots of mothers, and it's great fun, and it's a great way to get out. And we played a friendly a couple of weeks ago against Carrie Duff, another team in Belfast, and it was 10 minutes, 310 minutes.
SPEAKER_05:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:And at the end I said, Who won? And they said, We don't know. Yeah, they won't even keep a score, like it's just that level of just the literal meaning of a word friendly. Yeah, yeah, literally, which is great, which I love because it's just a bit of crack and it doesn't matter if you kick it wide.
SPEAKER_00:It is, it's great. It's one it's it's one of my proudest things is that Sports Direct, who sponsored the the Gaelic from Others and others with the LGFA, they came on board after seeing a presentation at an event that we did a number of years ago as well. I'm always very proud of that. That weekend up in Malahyde and Port Marnock, where they bring together teams from all over the country. It's one of the best weekends in sport in Ireland. If you haven't been to it, you really do need to try and get to it. Um, okay. If I could offer you a ticket to a single sporting event anywhere in the world, what might that be?
SPEAKER_03:Do you know what? Before I got married, I probably would have said maybe ice hockey or basketball.
SPEAKER_05:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:But I am now married to someone who is F1 mad. I am not F1 mad, but it is on an awful lot, and I think I would really enjoy going to one of the Grand Prix with my husband because I know how much joy it would bring him, and I think I would appreciate the spectacle of it all. Um I've never been to anything like that, and neither has he, but maybe one day because he loves it so much, like he is so into it, and I think I would just really enjoy going and experiencing that with him and seeing the grid and seeing the buzz of it all, hearing the noise of it all.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um so probably that, yeah. I'd like to maybe go with it.
SPEAKER_00:That first flush of married love is running running through.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I'll tell him I said this.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, word of advice if you go into Monza, we went to Monza for the Italian Grand Prix a number of years ago who were celebrating the centenary, uh, the hundred years, and Monza is just full of history and it's brilliant. And Ferrari were leading the race at one stage, but make sure that you get a season to stand because they only had one big screen, and other than that, it's just a noisy experience and a lot of nice trees.
SPEAKER_03:One of our colleagues, uh Gabby on the brand team, she was at Singapore at the weekend, so she was saying the scene that she was like, couldn't really see much, but it was still it was still great, it was still in a brilliant experience.
SPEAKER_00:Singapore is one of the day-night ones, I think. They're they're all was very good as well.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, she had there was a lot of concerts and stuff, so there was a whole a weekend of entertainment.
SPEAKER_00:The lights coming down. Okay, let's move away from sport a little bit now. Uh Netflix in or night at the movies out?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, in, Netflix in with a fire lit and a cup of tea.
SPEAKER_00:What's the what's a recent show that you've enjoyed?
SPEAKER_03:We are currently on season four of Yellowstone. Okay. Um, which had been recommended to us by a lot of people. Someone told me it was a slow burner. I don't know if they were watching the same show as us at all. Um it's like EastEnders, only in the Wild West ranch. It is mad, but it's it's really good. Um, we're really enjoying it. And next up will probably be House of Guinness.
SPEAKER_05:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Because I'm quite I really like Anthony Boy from Belfast. I think he's a brilliant actor and he's he's done some really great work. So anything he's in, I'll happily watch. It was brilliant in Saint Nothing as well.
SPEAKER_02:Um but I have heard it's been slated by Irish audience and then praised by non-Arish audience. So yeah, I've been watching it.
SPEAKER_00:I've been watching it. Um I just walked past Ivy House, which is the Department of Foreign Affairs now, but which features prominently as the home of the Guinness family back in the uh in the 19th century as well. Um I'm enjoying it, yeah. Yeah, wrapping good yarn, as they say. Um and anything that you've got Fontaine's DC and kneecap and all of the rest of it as a sound. Yeah, that's pretty pretty cool. Um, how about a book? You mentioned Say Nothing. I didn't watch Say Nothing, but I read it as a book and I thought it was brilliant. I'm a I'm a history student, but even that just told me stuff which I had either forgotten or hadn't known about the about the that period of time in in Northern Irish history. But um what's a book that you've read recently that you read?
SPEAKER_03:I'm not as profound with you, Rob. That's quite that's quite good reading. Three readings are nothing. Um it was my New Year's resolution of myself to read more this year because I used to love reading, but unfortunately through wedding planning, I have not read as much as I would like. Okay, but I the last book I did finish last month, I do like a bit of fluff, I have to say. It'd like I like where it takes me to you know uh an escapism. Um I read Grown Ups by Marion Keyes, okay, and I did just see the other week that that's been commissioned by Netflix. I think Sharon Horkins did a star in it along with Robert Sheehan, and I was very glad to see that after I just read it, it was still very fresh in my head. Yeah, it's very good, it was very funny. It was typical Marion Keyes, funny, dark at times, with deeper meanings running underneath, but still a pH turner as well. So it was good.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know if you've read it, but it's never apologise for fluff. It's the thing I love about reading, and I and I do read a lot, but as soon as you open the page, it takes you out of your head, out of the world, out of everything else that's going on around you.
SPEAKER_03:That was the last one I finished, and I'm currently reading Heartburn by Nora Efron, which was uh birthday present last year, but I haven't got round it, and um I don't know if you know it.
SPEAKER_00:I do indeed.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I'm I'm about two pages in, and she's describing the lady that had the affair with her husband as having the nose like a thumb, and oh, she's like it's very well written.
SPEAKER_00:Waspish, I think. Yeah, that's right, yeah. How about how about the what's on the top of your playlist at the moment? What's the what's the song that or the or the artist that gets your feet tapping?
SPEAKER_03:I'm loving Chapel Roan at the moment. Cool. She I would like her on the train. When I get the early train down from Belfast to Dublin, I need her to wake me up. Um and I'm really liking Olivia Dean as well. Her her music, um she's kind of burst onto the scene, the music scene, shall we say, this year, and it's very chill. I like it when I'm cooking and relaxing, you know, it's very like you feel like in your coffee house or something like that, or in a barista, very warm tone, her voice, kind of like a Just Own or Nora Jones or someone like that. Her music is really nice. So if it was a Saturday night cooking dinner, I'd have her on. And then if I need to wake myself up and get ready for the day, I'll take all chapel runs.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, and the last couple of ones. Um, when you are cooking, what would be your favourite meal?
SPEAKER_03:I'm so glad you asked Rob because I have the answer straight away.
SPEAKER_00:Cool.
SPEAKER_03:A seafood linguini. I'm known for it. Um I absolutely love seafood. I would do uh a pasta, but linguini or spaghetti with mussels, prawns, crab claws if I could get them, um, maybe clams, like all of that. If that's on a menu in a restaurant, close the menu, that's what I'm getting.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe a little scallop or two?
SPEAKER_03:I'd have them to start. I would do them to start. And I went to George's Market last year and got some scallops when I was doing my that would be like a date-night dinner for the both of us. And um the man Michael, the fishmonger, was really lovely, and he'd give me the shells but that the scallops were presented, and you know, they put them out in the ice and he'd give me those, and um it was really lovely, and I still have them in the kitchen and wash them and serve the scallops on them and pretend that I'm in a restaurant. And on our third date, I asked my husband Callum that like what would be like your kind of final supper meal, or and he didn't know me at this point too well, his third, you know, he didn't know my food to tastes or anything like that. And he thought about it and he said, A seafood linguiny, probably. And I said to him all the time, that's when I knew I was gonna find you when you came out with that.
SPEAKER_02:I was like, This is the man for me.
SPEAKER_00:Written in the stars. Absolutely. I am glad I asked that question. Um, and the last question to to wrap us up as well, and it's it's also got a restaurant theme, so I know what you're gonna eat now. Yeah, but if I was to book you into my favourite seafood restaurant, is Seoul Restaurant, and I'm dying to go. Oh, it's gorgeous, and they've just they've just done it all up and everything like that as well. It is absolutely gorgeous. You will love it. Yeah. So I've got a table in the corner. Uh, you and three others, guests that you can bring from the world of sport, politics, culture, arts. Uh, you can't be related to them because that would narrow us down uh a little bit too much. But uh, anybody else from history or the living world?
SPEAKER_03:From history, I would definitely take Ronnie Wheel, Grace O'Malley, my childhood heroine, um was obsessed with her as a girl and still kind of am. And I would just love to meet her because I always had such a hyperfixation, shall we say, on her.
SPEAKER_00:Might have been the wee rusty part of it, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03:Potentially. Well, she she got rid of the hair, didn't she? Like she shaved herself. Um, we went to Clare Island after the wedding, um, and I had been to her castle as a child, and I was delighted to be back on it last week, and I was just reading more about her and the you know that she went to Queen Elizabeth and made a trade bargain and stuff, and just what a woman of her time, uh, trail trail blizzard. Like, so definitely would have liked to meet meet her. Um, I would take Javan McNally, love her, going to see her in November. I think a lot of young women at my age love her as well. I think she would be. I just love to chat with her. I when I feel like when I'm listening to my podcast, I'm listening to my friend in a way.
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_03:Um, so I'd love to take her. And I don't know what else I need to maybe think about that. Maybe someone from sport I should take. I would take Franca Bowl, probably.
SPEAKER_05:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:I would have I would have three ladies there, three three great women. Um, but I I love watching her. I love watching her at the moment in in athlete athletics and the championships and the Olympics. She is just insanely talented. Yeah. And she seems like quite a shy individual. I don't know. She'd be very chatty, maybe. But if I was to pick one sporting person that I really admire at the moment that I wouldn't mind meeting, okay.
SPEAKER_00:I think she's she's really, really impressive. And we won't mention that to Rashida Adelecki, who might be coming up against her for uh two years to come at the moment, anyway. But uh yeah, great table.
SPEAKER_03:When she puts that foot down, Rob, when she comes around that band, that's just like a trend, you know.
SPEAKER_00:And languid.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and she makes it look so easy, she just looks like she's out for a walk.
SPEAKER_00:I know, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So she's just someone I really respect at the moment. So I think, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Does that sound like a uh sounds like a great table, and we know now that it will be seafood linguini all around.
SPEAKER_02:Well, Ronia would like it. She's living out in Clare Island, she wouldn't mind the fish.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, a woman of the sea and a woman of her time. Um, it's been a real pleasure talking to you. Um the Taneo Accelerate program has been a great success so far, and long may that run into the future. Um, I think we'll have to do this again now and find out who it is that's coming in in the 26 and the 27 uh cohorts as well. But for the time being, anyway, um, as we said at the beginning, fresh from Marital Bliss, uh Ellen McConville Boyd from Taneo.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Lovely chat with you.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. Thanks to Ellen for sharing that story of the Taneo Accelerate programme. A nice mix of the personal and the professional in there as well. I hope you enjoyed it. We will be back tomorrow morning with the Sport for Business Daily podcast. And you can find out more about what's happening across the commercial and outside of the world of Irish sport at sportforbusiness.com. This is uh Active Disability Week. It is a week in which Sport Island and indeed Active Disability Island are putting on a series of events. We're going to be speaking at one of them on Wednesday, the Active Disability Island annual conference, which is taking place down the Johnstown estate. So we will have plenty more on that subject and of course plenty more throughout the week. But for the time being, enjoy the rest of your day and thank you for taking the time to be with us this morning.
SPEAKER_01:I've been here and now a little nation on the map, but it's just you know, it's a talk of dream.
