In the second instalment of the 'Fuse Stories' series, Ronan provides insight into his journey from playing professional football to transitioning to a career off the pitch as a Senior Account Executive at Fuse.
7 Mins Read
Can you give our readers a bit of background on yourself and when your interest in sports began?
My name is Ronan Silva, and I grew up in West London. I come from an Afro-Portuguese background, with generations of my family settling in various countries, including the Cape Verde Islands, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Portugal. I wasn’t interested in sports until I was around six years old. Prior to this, I was only interested in comics. I was also my brother’s personal videographer, filming his skills and playing as a goalkeeper in our garden so he could practice his shooting. After watching his Sunday League games, I realised that playing was probably more interesting, so I joined my local team. The next step was finding a team to support. As my dad and brother were both massive Sporting Lisbon fans, I decided to support their rivals, SL Benfica, and I haven’t looked back since! Although football is my biggest passion point, and having realised my dream of signing my first professional contract a few years ago, as I got older, I developed a stronger interest in a broader range of sports, playing basketball, badminton and tennis, to name a few. To the present day, I can say my passion for elite sport, as a whole, has shaped me as a person.
As an ex-professional footballer, how did you transition from being a full-time player on the pitch to creating a career in the industry off it?
The transition was not extremely hard for me, given I had been at Loughborough University before signing my first professional contract. Therefore, I had an idea of what I wanted to go into, even if football didn’t work out. Whilst at Loughborough University, I decided to do a placement year at Wasserman Media Group’s competitive Experiential Marketing internship programme, where I balanced my studies with a full-time role and the beauties of non-league football. Balance has always been a crucial part of my life growing up, juggling a few things at once to make sure I never sold myself short of what I believed I had the potential to achieve. Despite this, as some will know, football is a cut-throat industry, and as a result, you develop thick skin. So, I certainly wouldn’t say it was easy to let go and decide to return to full-time employment, but I knew it was the best thing for me. After a while, you realise a lot of your skills from being in a professional environment are transferrable to other industries. The biggest factor is your work ethic; once you understand that, the rest will take care of itself!
What does your current role as a Senior Account Executive at Fuse Ignite entail?
My role in Ignite is to lead and support the sales process in creating meaningful strategic partnerships between sports rightsholders and brands. This starts with engaging various rightsholders across different sports to understand what they are in the market for, helping to create packages where relevant, and inputting our knowledge on what we know brands are looking for to make those packages more appealing. The other side of my role is to speak to brands internally within Omnicom and externally, where applicable, making them aware of opportunities that are targeted and tailored towards their business needs and objectives. Being well placed within the Omnicom network gives us various tools we can tap into, which separates us from a traditional sales agency. Additionally, I will typically work closely with our Senior Director of commercial strategy to create detailed data-led partnership stories for brands. This allows us to show brands why a specific rightsholder would help them achieve their marketing objectives and address their challenges.
Can you take us through what a typical work week looks like for you?
Each week can vary depending on the different projects we have going on. Typically, it is an ongoing process of engaging account and client leads within Omnicom to make them aware of the sports and entertainment opportunities that are relevant to them. An opportunity could be relevant to them for several reasons, such as increasing awareness in a specific market or driving sales in another. Prior to doing so, I will set up calls with various rightsholders to learn about different opportunities in the market and keep track of when those big-ticket items may expire so we can bring the most premium opportunities to our brands within Omnicom.
What are some of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of your job?
I feel extremely lucky that my strengths align well with what is required from my role. I think presenting is tough to start off with, which is a large part of what the job entails, but the more you understand and are passionate about something, the easier it is to present so it doesn’t come across as scripted. Persistence is vital in this industry; I wouldn’t necessarily put that down as a challenge but more as a motivation to stay driven and want to achieve something. The rewards would, of course, be the feeling of seeing a deal through and accomplishing something you have been working towards for a long time. I also enjoy meeting different people when finding out about various opportunities, and once you get to know them well enough, it is rewarding to collaborate and be successful together.
What skills are the most crucial to your role?
As I previously alluded to, persistence, self-drive, and motivation are the most important skills. Outreach is not always easy, but you need to believe in the ideas you are proposing and stay well-versed and polite when approaching both brands and rightsholders. People like to work with nice people, which is also part of it!
What is your favourite thing about working at Fuse?
My favourite thing about working at Fuse is the team environment fostered by the leadership team. From arranging business updates for everyone in the agency to after-work socials on Thursday, there is a real conscious effort to make everyone feel a sense of belonging and part of the agency’s growth trajectory.
What more needs to be done to make the industry more accessible to ex-football players who want to create a career off the pitch?
I think a lot needs to be done both internally within football clubs and externally within the wider industry to make ex-footballers more aware of the types of roles that are available in the commercial world of sport. A mentality shift is needed within football clubs as players are often encouraged to focus their time solely on football, whilst any interests outside of football can be to the detriment of your career. I don’t think this is true, and not encouraging other interests or potential career paths outside of football is the wrong message to be sending to players. The reality is that, outside of the Premier League, players will not be able to live off their football earnings forever. Though I appreciate that roles in the sports business are competitive, I also feel that we in the industry can do more to make ex-footballers aware of what the commercial world in sports means and entails. This is a difficult task, and one which I am currently working on, so stay tuned!
What is one piece of advice you would give to a young person who is looking to enter the sports and entertainment industry?
Be curious, connect, and speak to as many people in the industry as possible. Building a network and connections in different areas is super useful. The sports industry is extremely vast, and the earlier you can find out your interests and roles you would be keen to pursue, the better. However, I would also encourage you to try different roles and get as much experience as possible.