From Podium to the Next Chapter

On January 27, students, professionals, and sports enthusiasts gathered in Ragnar at the Stockholm School of Economics for an engaging Sport Talk with participants from the Management Diploma for Athletes (MDA) - an executive education program designed to support elite athletes in preparing for life after sports.

The panel brought together an exceptional group: Anna Östling and Linnéa Wennergren, world champion sailors; André Myhrer, Olympic gold medalist in alpine skiing; and Alexander Björk, world-class professional golfer. Despite coming from different disciplines, their stories revealed strikingly similar themes: discipline, resilience, teamwork, and the ability to perform under pressure.

Linnéa Wennergren reflected on combining elite sailing with entrepreneurship, having founded and scaled a high-performance sports sock company alongside her athletic career. She described how intense focus, mental checklists, and the ability to eliminate distractions - skills honed in sport - became critical assets in business. For Wennergren, purpose and energy remain the ultimate drivers, even through setbacks and demanding conditions.

Anna Östling highlighted the importance of teamwork and leadership in sailing, a sport that requires managing logistics, media, and constantly shifting team constellations. She emphasized that high performance is not only about pushing harder, but also about recovery. "Going low to be high", she noted, arguing that sustainable success - both in sport and business - requires rest, reflection, and trust in one's own performance tools.

From an individual sport perspective, Alexander Björk shared insights from professional golf, describing the strong team behind the scenes that supports performance at the highest level. He spoke about structure, preparation, and the mental game, including positive self-talk and reframing challenges to maintain motivation. As he looks ahead to life beyond competitive golf, Björk sees these skills as directly transferable to future roles, both within and outside sport.

André Myhrer, who retired from alpine skiing six years ago, reflected on navigating multiple career paths since leaving elite competition, including entrepreneurship and running a gym. He stressed the value of routines, goal-setting, and dreaming big while breaking ambitions down into achievable steps. Discipline, focus, and the ability to perform under pressure, he argued, remain powerful assets long after an athletic career ends.

Across the discussion, one message was clear: former athletes bring a unique and highly relevant toolbox to the corporate world. Hard work, commitment, resilience in the face of setbacks, and a strong inner drive to improve were repeatedly highlighted as qualities that make ex-athletes valuable leaders and colleagues.

The Sport Talk offered a compelling glimpse into how elite sports experience can shape impactful careers in business and leadership.

Later in the afternoon, the current MDA class and alumni from previous cohorts continued the program by attending a session with SSE researcher and business strategist Martin Sköld. Sköld introduced his new book Masterclass, presenting a fresh framework for addressing today's most critical corporate challenges - strategy, sustainability, innovation, and profitability. Drawing on extensive research and real-world cases, the book outlines four practical principles designed to help organizations build long-term competitive advantage.