Back in 1996, Christophe Dubi started with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as a trainee, but after nailing opportunities to represent the organization, he eventually found his way among the top dogs as the IOC’s Games Executive Director. With the Paris Olympics opening this Friday, we spoke to Dubi about how he managed such a meteoric climb, and how he hopes the games can bring the global community together.
Sport is in my blood. When I was three years old, my father participated in the Sapporo Winter Olympics as part of the Swiss ice hockey team. In our apartment, I remember a big photograph that was taken of all the delegations at the opening ceremony. The Swiss delegation was pretty tiny. I can still remember my dad pointing out where he was in that photo to me as a kid. Everyone in Lausanne knew my father. He would always stop and talk to people who wanted to say hi or get his autograph. Through him, I started to learn about how important sports are to so many people because of the joy they can bring along with the tough moments, like injuries.
I went to school to study political economics at Fribourg University and graduated in 1994. Afterwards, I went into real estate, making a good salary for my age. However, I had a terrible boss, and I could not stand to work for someone who made others suffer. It became very clear how people in management positions can affect the whole culture of an individual organization. I switched to finance, which was much more complex and challenging than real estate, but again I had a terrible boss. We were managing the retirement funds for workers at several companies and a few times I thought we were skirting the line on some very important rules. I mentioned this to my boss and he said, “Don’t worry, there’s lots of money to be made.” After bringing up my ethical concerns a few times there was tension, so I decided to leave. Two years later, he’s on the front page of the local newspaper, in jail. From that, I learned that you have to be a good person and ethics are fundamental; you cannot play with that.
In 1996, I had the opportunity to join the IOC as an intern. I was 27 years old. I took a huge pay cut but I loved the idea of working in an international environment, and blending my growing passions for project management, economics and creativity. At the time, there was no proper coordination between the various departments in the IOC so Jacques Rogge, who was the IOC president at the time, asked a trainee to come up with a way to coordinate games management. The responsibility fell on me. After a few weeks, I came up with a number of proposals and the people in charge seemed to like them. This opportunity helped me realize this is exactly what I was designed to do. I was interested in politics, finance and real estate and working at the IOC combined all of it. We’re building bridges and stadiums and financing the games in the billions of dollars, plus we get to be super creative when, for example, coming up with the opening ceremonies. It’s the whole package.
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From the very beginning, my bosses placed a huge amount of trust in me, even as an intern. Early on, they sent me to a meeting of European sports ministers in Paris where I was tasked with representing the IOC. When I arrived at the conference centre, I found out I was on the agenda. I wasn’t prepared for that. I must have met the challenge because I was asked to join the organization officially in 1997, in charge of games coordination.
When I started at the IOC I looked very different from everyone. I had long hair, which in the IOC at the time was like the antichrist. But my approach was always to be brave enough to try things that hadn’t been done before. I was working day and night and invested myself fully, having meetings, writing risk assessments and reports, analyzing the games afterwards to figure out what we could improve.
After 10 years, Jacques Rogge called me into his office to tell me that one of the top jobs, Sports Director, had become available. I told him I was quite happy with what I was doing in games coordination, but he said, “That’s irrelevant, because you’re the next Games Executive Director.”
From there, I became more of a generalist. Rather than knowing everything there was to know about sports, I had to be aware of everything going on in the organization at any given time. Things were really tough in Torino, but after Vancouver and London, the whole thing became more mature from an operations and delivery standpoint. This organization lives by and through the Olympic Games. They are our only source of revenue, which generates money for the smaller National Olympic Committees and federations. Right now we’re in a comfortable position because if we wanted to award the winter games up until 2042, we can do it tomorrow. I don’t think you have many businesses around the globe you can say they are safe until 2042.
In order to do this job you have to be very principled. It’s the greatest challenge of the job, but also what makes it the most rewarding. It can be very hard to stick to those principles when countries are aggressive towards one another, but when I meet with NGOs and politicians, I stand very firm on our ground that the IOC is a nonpolitical organization. However, athletes can say whatever they want during the press conference, including criticizing the host country, and that has to be respected. We have pressure from both sides to bend our rules and the answer is no.
The slogan for the Paris Olympics is “Games wide open.” We’ve worked a lot with the organizers in Paris to transform what has been perceived as a very exclusive event to something that is truly for everyone. In Paris, we will get the whole world community to come together at a time when tensions are extremely high.
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