At home with Leaders: Ricardo Fort

How sponsor brands are reacting to the crisis | The deals that have been done | The business of de-organising a global activation.

Episode 82 of the Leaders Sport Business Podcast is brought to you in partnership with Onside Law. As a gesture of help, the specialist law firm is offering a number of free sports law clinics for those grappling with issues arising from Covid-19. Request a free session here.

Joining James Emmett and David Cushnan for this episode is Coca Cola's VP of Global Sports & Entertainment Partnerships Ricardo Fort (conversation begins at 21:04).

Fort began his marketing career at Unilever in his home country of Brazil in the early 1990s. He joined the Coca-Cola Company as a brand manager for Sprite in Brazil in 1998 before working his way up the marketing ladder. He left the company in 2011 for stints at Danone and Visa, before returning in 2016 to head up Coca-Cola's global sponsorship efforts from its headquarters in Atlanta.

On the conversational agenda:

- Scaling down or turning over marketing activity for public service messaging around the world;

- Inside the process of postponing Tokyo 2020;

- How the new Olympic deal alongside Chinese dairy brand Mengniu came about;

- The history of sports sponsorship and how Coke has been a pioneer;

- How best to approach the company with partnership ideas.