Maneesh in his late 40s , an Income-Tax commissioner who has sent notices to millionaires and billionaires in India , seen the power of the Lal Batti , takes an early retirement after spending time as the head of a Goa State infrastructure company that created the film festival set up . His dream . To build the first for-profit professionally run Olympic Sports company , that puts money into nurturing athletes , and also manages their branding, endorsements and possibly their future . Sports is a very short and high risk career . You need to save and plan . Any injury can finish you off . You need support to go over the dark moments when you do not win , and everyone has given up on you . Indians are mostly not happy supporting other peoples success , if they are not of your caste or family . To completely break that mind-set and build a support system for passion, persistence and excellence . That was the idea behind Anglian Medal-Hunt Company. There is a non-profit- Olympic Gold Quest , with Geet Sethi and Prakash Padukone and many of the richest names from Mumbai business world and Deepika Padukone. They have been doing great work . Our dream is to work with every non-profit and build the athletes life and confidence and financial sustainability . Our focus is the athlete and her life. After and before the Medal . For me to see Maneesh to get down from the high seat of the Big Babu and re-learn so many things , from doing marketing pitches to Brand Heads and CXOs to managing personal family crises of the athletes and their families , has been a journey to watch with bated breath . It is a realisation that wonderful talented and passionate organisers are thriving in our bureaucracy without the right kind of support , nurturing and freedom of action. And that no age is too old to do a Start-Up . I saw this possibility and pitched the idea to a few investor friends . And they thankfully bought in. We send 11 athletes to Commonwealth Games , won 8 medals , now about 18 are going for Asian Games . We have companies like Benetton and Samsung supporting athletes now along with many other local businesses. We are building traction for athlete development funding . Both as CSR and branding . That is now our specialty in many sectors . Diffusing the sharp lines between profits , non-profits , start-ups , social entrepreneurship et al . And as we go along we make new friends daily. Sports federations, coaches , retired athletes , extreme sport psychologists , army trainers , global top training academies , politicians and its a buzzing story. When you are the first , there are no paths . You learn to fall daily, and get up daily . I would not advise start-ups for everyone, and in sports only for the mad ones ! People do ONE big risky thing. I have surrounded myself with a dozen ;-) And scores before, some thriving, some decaying . There is no guarantee of sustainability , but there is no limit to how many times you can start again ! “The first thing that struck me there was just how many of our athletes had inexplicable mental breakdowns,” says Bahuguna. “Then there was the lack of preparation from the support team surrounding the athletes.” For example, when there was a draw for boxers on the second day of the Olympics, the Indian boxers knew nothing about their opponents. “We had no strategies,” Bahuguna says. “We had not watched videos of potential opponents, we did not know their styles, weaknesses, strengths.” Read more at: livemint/Leisure/FlwHBAAv7yAcmFM5fKwcAL/Anglian-Medal-Hunt-Company-Making-the-next-Olympic-star.html?utm_source=copy
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 03:50:06 +0000
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