Between The Lines - The Careers Behind The Game

What if your childhood dream was to play for FCBarcelona and you ended up building its digital world instead?  Oriol Boix Sancho is Head of Digital Products& Memberships at FC Barcelona. In this episode, Oriol shares the moment he first saw FC Barcelona as a company rather than just a club, why he treats every job interview as a two-way negotiation, and what his acting career taught him about...

Francesca Rio spent many years on the Italian national figure skating team before an injury at 23 forced the hardest decision of her life. What followed was a career nobody could have planned: fashion at Dolce & Gabbana and Valentino, a cold LinkedIn application to AC Milan, and now leading Merchandising and Licensing at the Audi F1 Project. In this episode, Francesca opens up about losing her...

Giulio Castiglioni didn't plan his way into sports tech. He coached football in Italy, stumbled into padel booking before anyone knew what padel was, and eventually found himself leading customer care at Playtomic — one of Europe's fastest-growing sports startups — across a team of 34 people from 17 nationalities. In this episode, Giulio shares the pivotal moments that shaped his career: t...

Zineb Soulami grew up in Morocco, studied in France, and has since worked across Asia and the Middle East — and that journey of constant movement turned out to be the foundation of everything she's built professionally. Now a sports strategy consultant, Zineb has worked on complex projects across some of the fastest-moving markets in global sport. In this episode, she challenges the "foll...

Ben Nichols has reinvented himself more times than most people dare to try once. Over a 20-year career in sports, he's moved from communications in Tennis and Formula 1 to leading PR at the World Anti-Doping Agency during one of its most scrutinised periods, to founding Padel22 — a global communications agency in a sport that's now growing faster than almost anyone predicted. In this episo...

Majd Steitieh entered the sports industry without a traditional sports background — and that turned out to be exactly the point. After studying at McGill and Harvard and building her early career through audit, PwC, and McKinsey across multiple countries, she eventually made it to the US Soccer Federation, where she leads growth strategy with a focus on disability soccer and inclusion. In this epi...

Ramy Camel-Toueg's career reads like a masterclass in saying yes before you feel ready. From his early days navigating the intersection of sports, fashion, and culture in Dubai, to football sales and globe-trotting marketing roles across multiple markets, Ramy's journey to Adidas was built on one principle: manifest your ambitions out loud, then back it up with action. In this episode, he...

Welcome to Between the Lines; This is the podcast where we uncover the personal, often nonlinear journeys of people shaping the world of sports business. From marketers to tech people and innovators; it’s all about the twists, pivots, and unexpected plays that never make the LinkedIn profiles and headlines.

Charles Frémont didn't take the obvious route into football. After training as a corporate lawyer, he pivoted toward the sports industry and eventually found his way to the UEFA Innovation Hub — one of football's most forward-thinking environments. In this episode, Charles reflects on the career decisions that shaped his trajectory, and the unconventional moves that defined his path. He de...