I left home at 19 and moved to another country with no money, no safety net, and no plan.
What I had was an inner certainty that I was meant to build something meaningful.

Since then, I have navigated reinvention many times, across leadership roles, entrepreneurship, personal loss, burnout, and rebuilding from scratch. Those experiences shaped how I lead, how I listen, and how I guide others through change.

Today, I work at the intersection of leadership, human dynamics, and artificial intelligence.

I help leaders and organizations navigate transformation without losing trust, clarity, or their humanity.

I am the CEO of APEK.ai, where we build secure, enterprise-grade Agentic AI and voice solutions that modernize operations while humanizing communication. My work focuses on helping organizations adopt AI in ways that feel intelligent, responsible, and deeply human.

With over 20 years in enterprise transformation, leadership strategy, and reinvention, I bring a perspective that blends technology, psychology, and real-world leadership experience.

⸻

Who I Work With

• Executives and boards navigating AI-driven change
• Leaders in transition who look successful on paper but feel misaligned inside
• Organizations ready to evolve beyond legacy thinking and systems
• Founders and senior leaders preparing for their next chapter of impact

People usually come to me when change stops being theoretical and becomes personal.

⸻

What I Believe

AI will not replace leadership.
But it will expose it.

The future belongs to leaders who can combine intelligence with clarity, technology with trust, and innovation with humanity.

If my work resonates, explore my writing, talks, and leadership resources.
Or reach out if you are looking for a trusted advisor, speaker, or strategic partner during moments of transformation.

Eva Karnaukh

Nick Robinson has become one of the respected voices in the sports industry. He is the owner of Robinson Sports Group, the holding company for a group of sports business, charity, education and apparel ventures including International Sports Consulting (ISC), The Game Plan, DFY Sports and Athletes by Design.

Primarily through ISC, Nick has built 18 years of experience in sports management, marketing and sponsorship. A registered agent with FIFA, the FA and the RFU, he manages some of the most talented and influential athletes and agents in the world, advising on contracts, commercial strategy and careers. He has led and negotiated over £250m in elite sports deals to date.

Alongside ISC, Nick runs The Game Plan, a sports business accelerator that helps athletes, coaches and operators build serious, sustainable sports businesses. He also writes The Game Plan Weekly, a newsletter read by over 3,000 subscribers, sharing sports business insights, trends, practical tools, job openings and notable deals.

In late 2025 Nick founded Athletes by Design, a sports apparel brand co-designed with ambitious athletes just below the traditional top sponsorship tier. Tired of seeing only the top few percent supported by the global brands, he built a label that creates performance kit tailored to real athletes’ needs.

He also founded DFY, a UK registered charity that levels the playing field for the next generation by improving opportunities for over 1500 children from disadvantaged backgrounds in person every week. He hosts the DFY podcast Becoming Unstoppable, sharing honest stories from athletes and operators worldwide of resilience and achievement. DFY Academy runs youth football and basketball teams for boys and girls, as well as a structured mentorship programme that connects young people with role models and long-term guidance.

Nick regularly shares his experience as a guest lecturer at institutions including Harvard Law School, New York University, Florida State University and Loughborough University, and through ongoing content on sports business, negotiation and leadership.

📧 For enquiries: hello@weareisc.com

Nick Robinson

NFL scouting is one of the most resourced talent systems in sport. 
It still underestimated the most valuable player of a generation.

In 2000, NFL teams had:
* film
* medical access
* performance testing
* interviews
* layered scouting opinions

And they collectively decided Brady was a sixth-round asset.

He didn’t fit the physical profile the system prioritised:
* below-average athletic testing
* limited mobility
* no standout physical traits

From a business perspective, this was rational decision-making based on the metrics that mattered at the time.

The problem is those metrics weren’t fully aligned with what actually drives long-term value at quarterback.

Leadership under pressure.
Decision speed.
Learning velocity.
Durability.
Competitive edge over 20 years, not 20 reps.

For Brady, he didn’t demonstrate these things at the Combine.
These traits only show up once someone is inside the building.

When the Patriots drafted Brady at 199, the cost was minimal.
The upside, however, was uncapped.

What followed is one of the most legendary NFL and global sports careers of all time, plus:

* sustained competitiveness
* brand relevance for two decades
* commercial stability
* global fanbase expansion
* repeated deep playoff runs that compounded revenue

One low-cost decision unlocked system-wide returns that no scouting report could model.

The real lesson here is that talent identification systems are built to avoid obvious failure and not to guarantee extraordinary upside.

That’s why the most dangerous misses in sport are the players you never realised were underpriced until it’s too late.

Sports business works in strange ways.
The best assets often don’t look like assets when they’re cheapest.

♻️ Repost if you’re more interested in how talent is valued than how it’s celebrated.
📈 Follow Nick Robinson & The Game Plan - Sports Business Accelerator for sharp insights on sports business.

Sports Business Leader | $250M in contracts negotiated | Operating at the top of the industry while training future sports executives

Everyone laughed at the 61-year-old in farm boots.
Then he won by a landslide.

In 1983, Australian farmer Cliff Young shocked the world by winning an 875 km ultra-marathon with no training, no running shoes, just work boots. While others slept, he shuffled through the night. He crossed the finish line 10 hours ahead of the favourites.

He demonstrated a Champion's mindset: 

🥊 Muhammad Ali broke his jaw in round 2 of a fight, he kept fighting and won after 10 more rounds.

🏌🏻Tiger Woods won the 2008 US Open on a fractured leg, enduring pain for 91 holes.

🏀 Michael Jordan scored 38 points in the 1997 NBA Finals despite severe illness, the legendary "flu game."

Champions understand limits differently:

1️⃣ Mental Override 🧠
→ The brain acts as a regulator, signalling fatigue to protect you (Central Governor Theory)
→ But studies show perceived exertion can be overridden with focus and belief
→ Mental strength training improves endurance by up to 25% (Journal of Sports Sciences)

2️⃣ The 40% Rule 🔓
→ Research shows most people hit mental resistance at just 40% of their physical capacity (Navy SEAL insight, supported by exercise physiology studies)
→ Elite performers train to recognise and push past this artificial wall

3️⃣ The Breakthrough Pattern 📈
→ Setbacks activate “supercompensation” – your body adapts to come back stronger 
→ Neuroscience shows repeated adversity strengthens neural pathways tied to grit and perseverance 
→ Athletes who bounce back from injury often surpass previous performance benchmarks (British Journal of Sports Medicine)

Physical limits are negotiable.
Mental limits are illusions.

♻️ Share to help someone break barriers today
📈 Follow Nick Robinson for more insights on high-performance mindset

Two global brands.
Two very different strategies.

Nike vs Adidas is a globally recognised sports sponsorship strategy war.

Both brands spend millions in sport, but they are buying different forms of attention and targeting different payback cycles.

Nike’s model is about frequency.
Get the swoosh on screen every weekend, across leagues that never stop. NFL. NBA. Elite clubs. Constant repetition, constant reminders, constant retail pull.

Adidas goes for a different route.
It targets authority moments. World Cups. Iconic clubs. Global tournaments where one visual identity dominates and the brand becomes part of the occasion and story.

Neither approach is better in isolation.

They optimise for different risks:

👟 Nike is built to survive misses because the machine is so big. Weekly exposure protects volume even when individual bets underperform.

👟 Adidas is more exposed to peaks and cycles, but when it wins, it wins big. Events create lifestyle moments that outlives the match.

The interesting part heading into 2026 will be who converts attention into sell-through as distribution fragments and sponsors are pushed even harder on ROI.

Weekly repetition = cashflow.
Event authority = brand equity.

This carousel breaks down where each brand pays, and where each one gets paid back.

♻️ Repost if you’re interested in sports sponsorship 
📈 Follow Nick Robinson & The Game Plan - Sports Business Accelerator for sharp insights on sports business.

The battle of the brands

Most athletes are fighting for attention 
on Instagram and TikTok.

Very few are paying attention to LinkedIn.

That imbalance is the opportunity 💡

LinkedIn is still largely untapped by athletes, yet it is the only major platform where sponsors, founders, executives, investors and operators already spend time in a decision-making mindset.

We are already seeing smart athletes move early 👇

🏀 Stephen Curry
Uses LinkedIn to talk leadership, ownership and long-term projects. That is how relevance extends beyond the court.

🏈 Kelvin B.
NFL veteran posting about service, community and impact. Shows sponsors he is more than a player.

🎾 Sloane Stephens
Positions herself around entrepreneurship, philanthropy and giving back. Sponsors see a well-aligned partner.

🏎️ Lewis Hamilton
Entrepreneur, investor, F1 driver. His LinkedIn presence reinforces the business mogul narrative.

🏉 Maro Itoje
Building his professional profile alongside his rugby career. Smart positioning for what comes next.

🏈 Fernando Mendoza
College athlete already thinking ahead. The earlier you start, the better.

Less than 5% of LinkedIn users post regularly. The platform is quiet for now but that will not last.

♻️ Repost if you think athletes should own more of their future.

📈 Follow Nick Robinson & The Game Plan - Sports Business Accelerator for clear thinking on sports business.

Sports Business Leader | $250M in contracts negotiated | Operating at the top of the sports industry & now training future executives

The rise of athletes on LinkedIn

Recognise the good old days 
whilst you're still in them.

It's so easy to get caught up in the everyday challenges of life that we forget to enjoy the short ride.

There's a decent chance we're living in a slither of time between two eternities of nothing. 

The probability of your existence is 1 in 400 trillion. 

Last month a Welsh couple won the lottery for the second time in their lifetime.

We’re told those odds were 24 trillion to 1.

Times that by 16 and you're still short of the odds for being alive. 

So don't worry too much about the boss that pissed you off 
or the colleague that bitched about you. 

In the grand composition of your life, they're just a waste of your time.

If you've got kids, remember that the days seem long and tiring but the years go by so quickly.

Time is your only non-renewable asset. Spend it on people that matter.

Most of us on this platform are living in the greatest era of abundance in human history.

So make the call. Take the leap. Do the thing you’ve been putting off. 

Don't worry about what other people think, because, speaking from experience, no one is thinking about you anyway. 

They're too consumed by their own problems to care about what you're doing.

Those that criticise are revealing themselves to be put in a bucket of people you don't need to think about again. 

Those that support you are showing themselves to be true friends.

So be brave in 2026. We're nearly 1 month through already.

The pain of failure is minimal.

The feeling of regret, or a life not fully lived, will be crippling.

♻️ Repost this to spread the message.

The pizza delivered straight to your seat?

Boosting your team valuation by 27%.

Deloitte has shown that modern stadiums are becoming billion-dollar ecosystems. 🏟️💰

The Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium generates $100m+ a year from tickets alone, but that’s only one slice of your delivery pizza. 

Add in naming rights (SoFi pays $30m annually in LA), food and beverage margins, sponsorship activations, concerts, and surrounding real estate, and suddenly the stadium itself becomes a diversified business portfolio.

It sounds obvious (but what doesn't in hindsight?) but it's because stadiums are designed as year-round technology equipped assets, not weekend venues. Smart owners are filling districts with shops, restaurants, and hotels that compound long-term value.

I’ve witnessed how this model changes the finances - Teams that master stadium economics create more stability, more leverage with sponsors, and more resilience when on-field results fluctuate.

So, the scoreboard might tell you who won the game, but remember, it's the balance sheet tells you who’s winning the business, and they're not always aligned 👀

♻️ Share this with your match day buddy.
📈 Follow Nick Robinson for sharp insights on sports business, leadership, and mindset.

The 6 Ways Arenas Print Money

Club executives complain about agent fees.
Yet every single one still pays them. 
The cheque book never lies.

Football agents didn’t suddenly become powerful.
The market made room for them.

Once TV money exploded and player mobility increased, someone had to sit between clubs moving faster, players thinking globally, and contracts that now shape balance sheets as much as teamsheets.

The gap demanded intermediation. It created an industry.

🧠 The so called super agent is more than a negotiator these days.

At the top end, representation looks closer to strategic advisory. Planning career arcs, managing timing, controlling information asymmetry, and knowing which door opens when. 

📈 Clubs complain, then comply

Elite talent carries a scarcity premium. Competition is brutal. When deadlines compress and stakes rise, access and speed become commodities.

🌍 Scale works in different ways

Some agents built influence through portfolio arbitrage and repetition. Others through a handful of transformational deals. Different styles, same outcome: leverage increases with trust and track record

⚖️ Regulation keeps chasing behaviour

Rules have tightened, loosened, and tightened again. But power in football reroutes around friction rather than disappearing altogether. When money and incentives align, new structures form around them.

Modern football requires agents and arguably couldn't live without them, despite the bad press and stories you might see.

This carousel breaks down how that happened, and why it’s unlikely to reverse.

♻️ Repost if you’re interested in football’s dealmakers.
📈 Follow Nick Robinson & The Game Plan - Sports Business Accelerator for sharp insights on business, leadership, and high performance.

Football needs agents. Agree?

The most powerful agent in football used to be a DJ.
The biggest agent in basketball sold jerseys out of his car.
Be ready to fail. That's the cost of winning.

⚽️ Jorge Mendes was running nightclubs in Portugal before he ever represented a footballer. Now he's arguably the most powerful agent in world football. Ronaldo. Mourinho. And deals worth billions more.

⛳ Mark McCormack was a lawyer. He shook hands with Arnold Palmer and basically invented sports marketing. Built IMG into a global empire. Changed how athletes were valued forever.

⚽️ Daniel Levy was in commercial property. He built Tottenham into one of the most valuable clubs in football with a stadium that became the benchmark.

🏀 Rich Paul was selling jerseys out of the back of his car, met LeBron James. Now runs Klutch Sports representing some of the biggest names in basketball. No traditional path. Just adjustment after adjustment.

The sports industry rewards people who refuse to stay still.

It doesn't care what you studied. It doesn't care what your first job was. It cares whether you can see an opportunity and move towards it without delay.

The people who struggle? They're still waiting for the "right" time.

The industry is full of late entries. Full of people whose route made no sense until it did.

Your background isn't a limitation.
Your unwillingness to adjust is.

Recalculate. Move forward. 

♻️ Repost if 2026 is going to be your year.
📈 Follow Nick Robinson for more on sports business and high-performance mindset.

Hosting the Winter Olympics never makes profit. 
So why do governments still want them?

Every four years, the Winter Olympics arrives.
Behind the scenes, it operates like a governed commercial asset.

❄️ The Winter Games were never built for attention. Profit has never been the aim.

Broadcast revenue underwrites the entire Olympic system, and winter sport quietly delivers premium value. Short, high-skill events fit prime-time schedules. Audiences skew older, wealthier and urban. Sponsors pay for this

🏟️ Hosting, meanwhile, is not about making and ROI or even your money back.
But host cities are able to accelerate infrastructure, repositioning tourism, and signalling competence on a global stage. That’s why recent Games have favoured governments and regions that can absorb cost centrally rather than cities chasing a surplus.

🚗 Look at the sponsor mix and the pattern becomes clear.
Mobility, technology, finance and energy dominate. Brands buy association with precision, performance and reliability, not mass participation. The Winter Olympics is closer to Davos than a domestic league season.

🇮🇹 Milan-Cortina 2026 shows where the model is heading.
Distributed venues. Existing infrastructure. Private capital alongside public planning. A global city anchoring the brand, alpine resorts reinforcing luxury tourism. Less spectacle-building, more asset reuse.

For athletes, this creates a narrow but powerful window.
One event drives endorsement deals, media relevance and post-competition careers. Miss the moment, and the platform largely disappears.

The Winter Olympics endures because it stays scarce, symbolic and controlled.
It looks like sport. It behaves like strategy.

♻️ Repost if you’re more interested in the economics behind the event than the medal table.
📈 Follow Nick Robinson & The Game Plan - Sports Business Accelerator for sharp insights on sports business

The Business of the Winter Olympics

Motivation is a burst.
Discipline is a system.

Right about now is when New Year’s resolutions start to fade 📉

The motivation spike from January wears off. The system has either been built or it hasn't.

Motivation got you started. It was like a spark that lit the flame 🔥 . But like all flames, it flickers, it burns out. It vanishes.

In sport, you see it every pre-season. The hype. New boots. New playlist. New promises to yourself. 

Then the rain hits. The double sessions land. The first setback arrives. The cycle repeats itself.

As James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, puts it, “Motivation comes and goes. If you want to be great, build systems, not moods.”
Because real progress doesn’t come from spikes, it comes from habits.

Discipline is the slow burning fire you keep alive every single day.
No matter how you feel. No matter what’s going on.
You show up. You do the work.
Because that’s who you are.

You can see it in the best:

⚽ Cristiano Ronaldo, whose daily routines around sleep, recovery, and training barely change across seasons; or

🎾 Novak Djokovic, whose performance is built on repeatable systems around nutrition, movement, and preparation, not emotion.

Discipline makes you consistent.
And within that consistency, you’ll find the progress you’ve been chasing.

♻️ Share this with someone who’s building one day at a time.
📈 Follow Nick Robinson for more insights on the sports industry & high performance mindset.

Two more exceptional guest speakers added
to The Game Plan - Sports Business Accelerator
It doesn’t get much better than this 📈 

These are 2 people who shape football at the highest level from the inside.

And they’ll both be delivering guest lectures inside the programme, with opportunities for you to listen to them live, learn, and ask questions.

⚖️ Juan de Dios Crespo Pérez
Partner, Ruiz-Huerta & Crespo
Guest lecture in the Sports Law Module

Juan is one of the most respected sports lawyers in global football. He’s widely known as the lawyer of Lionel Messi, alongside record breaking legal work involving Neymar and Zinedine Zidane.

This is someone who has seen and influenced it all: contracts, disputes, regulation, governance, and the moments where careers and clubs can turn.

⚽ Víctor Orta
Sporting Director, Real Valladolid
Guest lecture in the Sporting Director, Scouting and Plater Recruitment Module

Víctor is one of the most experienced football operators in the game. He spent six years as Sporting Director at Leeds United, orchestrating the club’s return to the Premier League.

His career includes senior roles at Sevilla FC, FC Zenit & Middlesbrough FC.

This is a rare opportunity to learn directly from two people who operate where football, finance, law, and power intersect, and to ask the questions most people never get a chance to ask.

⏳ Final call for the next cohort.
📅 19th January 2026
🚨 Only a few spaces left 

The Game Plan - Sports Business Accelerator is a unique 10-week programme, built to be both self-paced and live online, starting 19 January.
📈 https://lnkd.in/eudnQAAY

There’s nothing else like it in the industry.

If you want 2026 to be the year your sports career takes off, 
💻  Book a call with Nick
🔗 https://lnkd.in/eVYNqwXQ

🔑 Your Sports Business cheat code

Learn the business. Master the hacks.

Find the opportunity that gets you into the game

📑 Sports Business Hack of the Week

Thinking like a fan won’t get you far behind the scenes.

This week’s hack breaks down how rights holders actually think about audiences, value and monetisation.

📍 Job Spotlight of the Week

Football Transactions Manager – Manchester City / City Football Group

What does it really take to run player deals across a global multi-club group?

👇 Read on to understand how football, finance and strategy collide in elite player trading.

📈 Sports Business Trend of the Week

January has become football’s reset button.

Chelsea, Manchester United and Real Madrid have all pulled the trigger on managers.

We break down why these decisions are made now – and the real financial cost of starting over.

💼 Jobs of the Week:

Mid-Level / Specialist:

Football Transactions Manager (Manchester City)

🔗 https://lnkd.in/eK_HP98G

Technical Manager (Tottenham Hotspur FC)

🔗 https://lnkd.in/ezj5Gjvc

Digital Performance Analyst (French Football Federation)

🔗 https://lnkd.in/etAq3HNq

Commercial Manager (Altrincham FC)

🔗 https://lnkd.in/ep49UvSK

Graduate & Early Career:

Academy Scout (Fulham FC)

🔗 https://lnkd.in/e457rH3E

Assistant Groundsperson (QPR)

🔗 https://lnkd.in/eNyiHXa6

♻️ Repost to help others get their foot in the door 
📈 Follow Nick Robinson & The Game Plan - Sports Business Accelerator for sharp insights on sports business

The Game Plan Weekly

🔑 Your Sports Business cheat code

Learn the business. Master the hacks.

Find the opportunity that gets you into the game

📑 Sports Business Hack of the Week

Trying harder doesn’t always move things forward when the route needs reassessing 

👇Read the full breakdown to find out how I did it as ISC 

📍 Job Spotlight of the Week

Think you can become a tech oval director on the international stage?

👇 Read on to find out how you can standout in your application 

📈 Sports Business Trend of the Week

Should a university pathway become the standard for clubs to need to develop.

👇Find out about the latest business trend in the industry.

👥 Social Post of The Week

Hosts rarely break even.

👉Learn how the payoff shows up elsewhere.

💼Jobs of the Week: 

Mid level & Specialist: 

Lead First Team Performance Analyst (Wolverhampton)

🔗 https://lnkd.in/etiuaXTN

Technical Director (Canada Soccer Association)

🔗 https://lnkd.in/e-mdJBPs

Graduate & Early Career:

Business Operations (DC United)

🔗 https://lnkd.in/edMMqpTw

UK Sports Marketing Placement Intern (Warner Bros. Discovery)

🔗 https://lnkd.in/eTZGMCVc

♻️ Repost to help others in the sports industry
📈 Follow Nick Robinson & The Game Plan - Sports Business Accelerator for sharp insights on sports business

Two years. Zero transfers. 
Then one number changed everything.
200

That's how many South American players were already in the MLS when we finally stopped to look at the data. We'd spent two years trying to move European players across the Atlantic and had nothing to show for it. 

The problem wasn't our players, network or work ethic. 
The problem was our strategy. 

Read the The Game Plan - Sports Business Accelerator Weekly newsletter for how we fixed it ↪️

p.s  Like this type of content and want to level up your sports game? 

Sign up to our weekly newsletter for sports insights, jobs, hacks and trends, delivered straight to your inbox  
📧 https://lnkd.in/em_7Vt_2 

Let's get 2026 started off to a flyer, we're nearly 1 month through already 📈

For two years, we tried to move our European players into the MLS. We had solid talent. We had the relationships. We had zero transfers. It sounds obv

Open article: Zero transfers in 2 years...then we analysed the data. by Nick Robinson • 2 min read

Zero transfers in 2 years...then we analysed the data.

Delighted to have negotiated a deal for Joe Joyce to join Gloucester Rugby next season. They're building some pack down at Kingsholm  🚀

View company: International Sports Consulting

📝 🏉 DONE DEAL: Happy to have negotiated Joe Joyce contract to join PREM Rugby club Gloucester Rugby next season. They're building some pack down at Kingsholm next season 💪

Was a pleasure to negotiate this deal to bring long standing International Sports Consulting client, Elliott Stooke, back to the UK 🤝

🏉 📝 DONE DEAL: Great to have Elliott Stooke back in the UK for the next 2 seasons as he joins PREM Rugby powerhouse Leicester Tigers 🤝

taplio

The Battle

Eva Karnaukh

Nick Robinson

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreNick Robinson's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Eva Karnaukh

Nick Robinson

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Nick Robinson's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreNick Robinson's LinkedIn Performance