Sports. Sneakers. Strategy. Business intelligence. Innovation. Storytelling. All things Giulia Zecchini finds a deep passion for, and ones that have helped foster her incredible career in the industry. Growing up in Milan, Italy, Giulia remembers the early influence of sports in her life. From her father's professional career in Italy to her own journey playing semi-pro basketball at a young age, there was something about this space that quickly solidified her interest in one day pursuing a career in it. Though at first uncertain of the area she would be involved in, one thing remained clear: she would stay immersed in sports. After moving to the United Kingdom (UK) at 18 years old to complete her studies, Giulia began to further explore her interests in sports. She was on a mission. Interning with the Italian National Olympic Committee in public relations for the 2012 London Olympics, Giulia received her introduction to the business side of sports. It was up from there. Upon graduating from university, Giulia began working in consulting before accepting an opportunity to move into football with Nielsen Sports. The rest is history! From there, she joined Formula 1 as the manager of the Commercial Business Intelligence team before transitioning into the gaming and Esports industry. Currently the Commercial Strategy Director at ESL FACEIT Group, Giulia continues to merge her love for sports, strategy, innovation, and business. Along with this, she has also tapped into some of her passions beyond the corporate space. Co-founding Sneaker Sisterhood—a platform for women to create, discuss, and positively impact the sneaker culture—and working as a presenter and host for the International Basketball Federation and EuroLeague Women, Giulia has embarked on a series of ventures that highlight her passions for sneakers, storytelling, and women's sports. Through it all, there is a powerful lesson Giulia has learned throughout this journey that grounds her: the power within community and collaboration, rather than competition. Truly inspiring!
You're currently in the world of gaming and Esports. What inspired you to tap into this side of sports? Could you share more with us about your current work in the gaming and Esports space?
Yeah! It sort of all happened during COVID. During COVID, I was still at Formula 1 and obviously we had to stop racing. I remember it was 2020, it was the first race of the season in March, (and) we were heading to Melbourne, Australia for the season launch. We literally had to stop everything because I think one of the drivers got COVID. That was pretty much the end of the season—the 2020 season just never really started. I remember we had an Esports team within Formula 1, and they came up with the idea of transforming what was at the time our Esports product which had professional Esports drivers to our actual drivers. They were like, “Why don't we get our actual drivers involved because most of them know how to sim race? They could compete on the computer games, and then we can get different celebrities involved. We can get a bunch of different people.” So we launched what was called back then the “Virtual Grands Prix,” and it kind of gave us this buffer. Whilst we couldn't continue with the real side of the sport, we could have the gaming equivalent. I think Formula 1 was sort of blessed in that instance where the game is pretty similar to the real life sport. People were tuning in. People were watching. We were seeing great numbers. We were commercializing it, and I started to pay more attention to what was happening in the Esports world. I ended up getting headhunted by the company that I now work for, ESL FACEIT Group. I'm not a big gamer myself.
You know, I play NBA 2K, Crash Bandicoot—which I don't think counts (*laughs*). But, I just thought it was really interesting. The founders of the company are three Italian guys, super young, super smart, very driven. Just had very solid interesting business ideas. I presented a commercial strategy that I thought would be relevant for them specific to the field that I focus on, which is primarily sponsorship with some licensing and media rights in there as well. They really liked my ideas and brought me on board. That was 2021, it was still a relatively small company, but they had been around for 10 years already. Last year, we were acquired and merged with another company. Now, we're the biggest Esports company in the world and (a) huge sort of international company now that produces all the main Esports competitions with publishers around the world. You know, we travel around the globe. From Brazil to Japan to the US to Europe. It's super exciting, and in my role as Commercial Strategy Director, I take care of our commercial strategy—focused primarily on sponsorship and partnerships with an element of some licensing and media rights solutions. I try to support all of our commercial verticals, but I come up with long-term plans and strategies; and shorter term tactics to make sure that we have something in place to develop our commercial products so that we can offer value to our fans but also offer value to the brands that are in our ecosystems. For example, we work with DHL, Intel, Monster, Gucci…so we come up with commercial and creative solutions for these brands to activate in the Esports space, both physically and digitally. You know, just do really cool, fun things for our fans; and to bring their brands to life in this sphere.
Let’s talk branding! How did you get started building your personal brand in the sports industry?
I'm not sure I can sort of pinpoint when I started building out my personal brand, but I've always been quite keen on the networking side and the public speaking side. I think I was very much helped from doing my master’s (degree) at Imperial College in London and the network that I developed there. I've always put myself forward as somebody that likes to talk about the topics that I'm passionate about; but I think that the main thing that I started to do was actually on my own social media pages. I started to focus a bit more on my Instagram page probably in 2015-2016. I started out putting content out—not that anybody was paying attention to it (*laughs*). But, I was putting out content that I wanted to put out. Initially, it actually started more in the sneaker and fashion space.
Then, it slowly morphed into more of a basketball and sports page as well—that then was also reflected on my other social media pages. I tried to develop a certain persona for Instagram, and then LinkedIn had a little bit more of a professional version of myself—similar to Twitter. I was just lucky enough that again, during COVID, the Italian Basketball Federation got in touch with me to launch their anniversary collection with Spalding. I ended up doing that campaign with them. By then, I had a couple thousand followers on Instagram and in Europe there's not loads of women doing basketball content. In Italy, even less, so I was one of the only women in the space. I did that campaign, (and) FIBA noticed me. They had a couple of people at FIBA that saw my content and then they brought me in during COVID to actually interview women in their EuroLeague Women competition. I started doing that on social media. I got to interview some of my favorite basketball players in the world—Kahleah Copper, Gabby Williams, Sandrine Gruda, and more. That personal brand developed from there also as a host and presenter on the side of my day-to-day job.
That’s awesome! First, let’s start with your love for sneakers. You are the Co-founder of Sneaker Sisterhood. What was the inspiration behind creating this community and this platform?
It feels like a long time ago now. We're nearly coming up on our five-year mark as a company with two of my greatest friends that we started Sneaker Sisterhood with. My sneaker collection started when I was much younger. Again, the love of basketball sort of translated into that as well. I feel like basketball really transcends so many cultural pillars, and one of them is definitely fashion and that lifestyle element. I started collecting AND1s when I was a little 12-year-old kid in Italy. I remember I couldn't get any shoes my size as a girl in Italy, and my dad would drive me way outside Milan—like a 45-minute drive—to this one store that would have AND1s in girl’s sizes. I started collecting AND1s and then never stopped. I didn't even realize it was a collection at the start, and then obviously snowballed into the unhealthy obsession that I now have with nearly 200 pairs of sneakers. When I moved to London, I was going for pickup days. You know, you enter raffles for sneakers, you win the raffle, you go to pickup days at different retailers. There's this retailer in London called “OFFSPRING,” and they were putting a lot of effort into making sure that women were also getting more hype releases. Because they were putting this effort into giving wins to women, a lot of women were sort of grouping together on Saturdays for these pickup days. A bunch of us met and a community sort of developed naturally. Obviously, we were all connected on Instagram and we were then also meeting face to face.
I met my now co-founders, Jay and Jules. They're both Londoners. One has Jamaican roots and is from Jamaica, and the other one is Nigerian. We just hit it off immediately and decided to launch Sneaker Sisterhood—which initially just started as an Instagram platform to make sure that we were showcasing women and their collections because nobody was really doing it as much at the time, and definitely not in Europe. Then, it sort of snowballed into this much bigger platform and community that primarily showcases diversity and inclusion. We didn't just want to go along with what the brands were doing—who were typically just showing skinnier, athletic, White, blonde women. We wanted to show that women come in all shapes, forms, sizes, and they still love sneakers. They don't only get into sneakers because of sports. You know, they might be music lovers, they might be fashion lovers, they might be all of the above. We wanted to tell those stories so it became a storytelling platform. We had the opportunity to work with all of the biggest lifestyle and sports brands out there. We work on campaigns with them. Sometimes we do some creative consulting to help them make sure that everything they do in the female space is apt and they're going out (with) the right messaging. We do events for brands. We've worked with Nike to host events, and we do workshops for young girls in the community to develop creativity. We've worked with Puma, we've worked with Merrell, we've worked with New Balance, so it's been a really great mix.
Along with your work in the sneaker space, you've tapped into the sports media and hosting space with FIBA and EuroLeague Women. What has that experience been like for you?
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