Building Inclusivity into Business – Lessons from the World of Sport

Earlier this year I wrote an opinion piece about how business leaders can take lessons from elite sport to help their decision-making, performance and management. I explained how I personally have absorbed a number of key principles from my own amateur training as well as exposure to some of the world’s elite athletes through my involvement in some of Central Asia’s major sporting events and organizations. 

In particular, my charitable fund, the Courage to be First Foundation, puts on the Almaty Marathon each year in Kazakhstan, which has grown to become one of Central Asia’s largest sports events, attracting some of the region’s top marathoners, and I’m helped in this endeavour by having some of Kazakhstan’s great athletes on the Board of the Marathon, including cycling legend Alexander Vinokurov.

The lessons that sport have to offer, however, go far beyond elite athletics and high-level training. The reason I and my co-founders decided to launch a charitable fund dedicated to sport and to put on mass participatory sporting events was to showcase the benefits of sport to a much wider audience than previously had access in Kazakhstan and Central Asia, and this purpose is central to our activities to this day. 

You can read more in Global Banking and Finance Review.