A Niche Skillset

Brief

ATP Tour is the governing body of men's professional tennis, entertaining billions of fans globally and showcasing the world's greatest players at prestigious tournaments. One of the tournaments ATP runs, the Challenger Tour, was missing a strategic leader who could deliver an optimum player pathway to continue fueling the sport's overall growth. This is where FB Sports stepped in.

 

Challenge

Due to the niche skillset required to take on this role, ATP needed to cover the entire market to ensure they had maximum exposure to the small pool of talent who could successfully take on this role. Even though ATP has an extensive network, they don't have full market coverage. It would take immense time, effort, and money for them to take on that challenge fully. Additionally, the role was time sensitive; ATP Tour required the executive to start within five months. Considering the average notice period of three months in the UK for this particular level, it didn't leave much time at all.

 

Solution

FB Sports provided a solution through our key hire model, allowing us access to our research and insight team's resources to generate talent on a global basis. We unearthed every potential candidate who could be a fit for the role, then through the use of AI, were able to prioritize the list in order of most likely to be interested, to work to the speed that was required to have this person start within the necessary timeframe. From the long list, four individuals went through the interview process for the shortlist. We managed the process for ATP, from the shortlist to assisting with relocating the successful candidate (the then CEO of Tennis South Africa) from South Africa to London. We even managed to get him started sooner than the five-month target start date.