Rasmus Ankersen

Most organisations are better at spotting confirmed talent than undervalued talent, and better at celebrating success than questioning why it happened. The result is predictable. They overpay for proven names, miss the people and ideas that would actually move performance, and slide into complacency the moment a strategy starts working.

Rasmus Ankersen is a Danish author and football executive who helps organisations identify undervalued talent, build performance environments that travel, and resist the complacency that follows success.

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Why organisations work with Rasmus Ankersen

He has actually built the model he talks about. As chairman of FC Midtjylland, the club won three Danish Superliga titles using a data-led recruitment and set-piece method that was later studied across European football.
His book The Gold Mine Effect is grounded in seven months of field research inside the world’s most productive talent ecosystems, from Brazilian football academies to Ethiopian distance running, not a desk study of secondary literature.
Through Sport Republic, he runs a multi-club investment platform now controlling Southampton FC and Goztepe SK, so the lens on capital allocation, scouting markets and downside management is operational, not theoretical.
He gives boards a vocabulary for the awkward conversation about success: how organisations stop learning the moment results turn positive, and what to do about it before the next cycle.

Biography highlights

Co-founder and CEO of Sport Republic, owner of Southampton FC and majority owner of Goztepe SK.
Co-director of football at Brentford FC, 2015 to 2020, the platform that produced Premier League promotion in 2021.
Chairman of FC Midtjylland during a period that included Danish Superliga titles in 2015, 2018 and 2020.
Author of The Gold Mine Effect (Icon Books, 2012) and Hunger in Paradise (2016).
TEDxManchester speaker on football analytics applied to organisational decision-making.
Has delivered keynotes for LEGO, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Boston Consulting Group, Roche, AstraZeneca, Coca-Cola and Cisco.

Biography

Brentford were a mid-table Championship club when Matthew Benham, Rasmus Ankersen and a small analytics team set out to build a Premier League squad without Premier League money. The same logic was applied at FC Midtjylland in Denmark. Both clubs went on to win, repeatedly, against opponents with bigger budgets and longer histories.

That track record is the foundation of Ankersen’s argument to corporate audiences. The bias to overvalue established names and undervalue evidence is not a football problem. It is a recruiting problem, a capital allocation problem, and a strategy problem. His book The Gold Mine Effect, published in 2012 after seven months living inside elite training environments from Kenya to Brazil, makes the case that performance hotbeds are produced, not discovered.

His second book, Hunger in Paradise, takes the harder question. Why do successful organisations stop learning. He frames complacency as the silent failure mode of a winning strategy, and argues that the work of leadership is to keep the system honest after the results turn good. The thesis has resonated with senior teams at LEGO, Google, BCG, Roche and others who have brought him in.

Today he runs Sport Republic, the investment vehicle that acquired Southampton FC in 2022 and now operates a multi-club model across England, Turkey and Belgium. The day job means his frameworks are tested in real time, against real capital, in one of the most ruthless performance markets there is.

Key speaking topics

High-performance culture
Talent identification and development
Data-driven decision-making
Avoiding complacency in successful organisations
Performance environments and ecosystems
Lessons from elite sport for business
Leadership and decision-making under pressure

Ideal for

CEOs and executive teams in scaled organisations entering a new performance cycle
CHROs and talent leaders rebuilding recruitment and assessment models
Strategy and corporate development leaders responsible for capital allocation and M&A
Boards examining why a winning strategy is starting to plateau

Audience outcomes

A sharper view of where the organisation is overpaying for proven names and underinvesting in evidence.
A working definition of complacency that can be diagnosed in the business, not just lamented.
Concrete examples of how data and judgement combine in high-stakes decisions, drawn from Brentford, Midtjylland and Southampton.
A reframing of what a “performance environment” is, and why most attempts to import one fail.

Available for

Speaking Themes

Languages

English

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Testimonials

Rasmus is a truly fascinating man with a real insight into high performance both for individuals and teams. Rasmus is not just about theory. His lessons are rooted in real hard field research.

Sir Clive Woodward

Rugby World Cup winning coach

Our sales force gave Rasmus the best feedback that they’ve ever given a speaker before. He really nailed it

SAP

Without doubt one of the best keynotes we have ever had in the 12 years the conference has been running.

Peter Elliott

Director of Operations, English Institute of Sport

Rasmus delivered an excellent speech about leadership and high performance. It was very insightful, and the feedback has served to confirm the success of our event. Much of this has to be attributed to Rasmus’ invaluable contribution

Boris FJ Collardi

CEO, Julius Bär

Rasmus digs deep with insight and experience capturing knowledge that is easily shared and hopefully applied, foolish if it’s not!

Ben Roberts

Global Talent Director, Saatchi & Saatchi

From Rasmus you don’t just get theories, you get concrete tools working in the real world. He is the ultimate coach.

Casper Stylsvig

Global Sponsorship Director, Manchester United

Rasmus Ankersen truly knows how to evoke the innovation spirit in people.

Susanne Kapfer

SAP Global Corporate Affairs EMEA North

Time with Rasmus is time well spent if you’re serious about challenging assumptions, facing taboos and having a different dialogue.

Caroline Kitcher

HR Director, TUI UK & Ireland TUI

Rasmus has consistently been rated as one of the best speakers to take the stage at Google events. Importantly, he was able to draw on wide range of experiences and stories that resonated with a particularly diverse audience, which is often one of the most challenging aspects when searching for inspirational key note speakers.

Graeme Standing

Google UK

Rasmus exceeded expectations receiving the best speaker evaluations seen in Management Events’ six years history. In the last two evaluations Rasmus received the highest score possible – 5 points from every single delegate.

Peter Rosenkilde

Country Manager, Management Events

Rasmus is not just an exciting and compelling speaker. He also created real impact with his speech for our senior leaders

Peter Giørtz-Carlsen

Executive Vice President, Arla Foods

Rasmus delivered the best presentation ever in a partner and directors meeting

Håvard S. Abrahamsen

CEO / Territory Senior Partner, PWC

Rasmus was a huge hit on the day. Overall his keynote had a massively positive impact.

Claire Bailey

What If Innovation

Regardless of where you are in your business cycle the timing of his lecture is always right, the findings of his studies are always relevant and the way it will change your view on how to act to safe guard your businesses is very simple and mindblowing! Listen to him before it is to late!

Stefan Lorentzson

Senior Vice President, Communications, Volvo Group Trucks Operations

An excellent speaker for our leadership conference, both for people who loved football and those who have no interest in it. There were lots of memorable stories and people left enthused by the ideas he shares

Exponent