Exploring the career and life journey of... Fred Burdon

HYPHENHow did you first get into rugby? And how did you go from that to your current line of work?

Fred Burdon

I grew up in Newcastle in the 1990s when the sports scene was pretty special – Newcastle United were flying high in the Premier League, there were Euro 96 games in the city, and then Newcastle Falcons won the Premiership with top players like Pat Lam and Inga Tuigamala.

Then when England won the 2003 Rugby World Cup thanks to Jonny Wilkinson – who played for Newcastle and was a local hero – I just thought that this was the best thing ever as a 13-year-old, and I knew I wanted to try to play rugby as my career.
I was picked up by the Falcons’ academy, played for England age groups, and then went to Cambridge University. The university is best known for its academics, but it’s an awesome place for rugby too – the Varsity Match was a massive occasion at Twickenham, and I got to play with and against players with international caps.
After that experience, I was ready to give full-time professional rugby my best crack and I did that for eight years with Doncaster, Yorkshire Carnegie and Newcastle Falcons.

Overall, I loved it, with some great moments but there were also some not-so-good bits. By the time I was 29, there were a few things that meant it wasn’t right for me to carry on playing: I didn't play very well my last year, the team I was in was at a bit of a crossroads, and I had neck surgery.

At that point, I started to think that I would try to move into something else before I turned 30. I had internships with a couple of banks and enjoyed them but there was a six-month gap before I could join full-time, so I decided to see what else I could do.
I applied to McKinsey, prepared hard for the interview and got in. I had always had this idea in the back of my mind that consulting might be a good fit (especially after I saw a lot of my uni friends do it) and I hoped it would open me up to a range of experiences and potential careers, and it’s been perfect for that.

HYPHENYou mentioned there that you got to a point where you started to really consider life after rugby – how did you approach finding a new career?

Fred Burdon

The nature of rugby is that you typically sign one or two-year contracts, you know you won’t be able to play forever and so I was always aware that I would need to do something else.

For the bulk of my career though, I really tried to be fully committed to getting the most out of myself in the sport and did not do things that some others are able to juggle like work experience or further education on the side. From time to time, I would apply for another job out of curiosity, but that was really the limit of it.

Toward the end of my last year, that all changed, and I knew it was time to move on. Some players might drop down a league and still get paid, but I wasn’t going to play at a level I wanted, so I stopped. I did have an opportunity to coach in a Premiership club academy straight after finishing playing which was really tempting. I loved coaching and it would have been a smooth transition.

Ultimately though, I decided I really should explore my options outside of rugby. I had given a lot of time and energy to the game and thought that there would be some rewarding experiences outside of rugby. That’s when I started using my network and applying for opportunities that led to the banking internships and then McKinsey

HyphenThinking about the people you worked with in rugby that particularly stood out, what was it about them that made them particularly impactful?

Fred Burdon

In terms of coaches, Mark Laycock immediately comes to mind. He was my academy manager in Newcastle and had an unbelievable ability to relate to his players – to make them feel comfortable and unconstrained – and he made all the sessions really playful and had a positive approach to rugby that really resonated with me. He also gave me some really good advice around university choices where he took a long-term view for me which I am very thankful for now.

The other coach that really springs to mind is Jimmy Lowes, who is a rugby league legend and was once Man of Steel for Bradford Bulls. He didn't have a massive background in rugby union but saw the game very clearly and saw loads of opportunities.

Jimmy has an unbelievable gift to make everybody feel incredibly confident when they went out on the pitch. He was always super clear in his messages - explaining what we were going to do and why it would work - and he empowered his players massively. Players would contribute to the game plan, and he wanted us to be very aggressive and take the game to the opposition. It really worked for me and I played by far my best rugby as an adult under him. They are the two that really stand out.

HYPHENA lot of attributes you built up during your rugby career seem quite transferable – communication, the ability to connect with others, building confidence and developing skills. Do you think being exposed to that sort of leadership has influenced how you approach your current line of work?

Fred Burdon

I'd hope so! I think there are things in sport that are very good preparation for life in general.

One thing about sport is you get coached a lot, making you very coachable and adaptable. If you think about most other jobs, you seem to spend 99% of your time doing ‘the job’ - teachers spend 99% of their time teaching, builders spend 99% of their time building, lawyers spend 99% of their time working on cases - and there’s very little time for targeted coaching.

As a rugby player, maybe 10% of my working week would be playing the actual game. The rest of the time is prep and working with dedicated coaches that work with you on how to do your job well, whether that’s technically, physically, or even psychologically, all trying to get you in peak condition. That encourages you to open your mind, to really listen to people, and to think about how you can change for the better.
There's also not much sugarcoating – it'll be ‘that's not good enough’ or ‘more of that’. You get very used to very straight-talking feedback which is helpful when starting out a new career.

The other thing is you have to collaborate in a team sport. Of course, you have to take pride in your own work - to get picked, to beat your opposite number, to get contracts - but you do that as part of a collective, in a group of 15 on the pitch and a broader squad off it, so sometimes your contributions can vary massively.
When I snapped my Achilles and didn't play for 18 months, I did video analysis to contribute to the team, without being on the pitch. Sometimes it's like you're the lead actor and sometimes you're an extra, but you have to be pretty adaptable and I think that makes you a good team person.

That is particularly important if you're a consultant contributing to a completely new ‘team’ - what does the client need or want from me, when, how can I deliver it most effectively? - and it felt natural to me to really listen to clients, talk to them directly and do what I could to make them better.

Fred Burdon

An individual league or sport might want to think about what they can do to make the product more attractive. That covers everything from rules of the game to scheduling games to the sign-up journey on their app – everything gets looked at in terms of how it will help keep fans’ attention.

Everyone is desperately trying to get as much engagement from their fans to show to potential commercial partners and right now, leaders want more first-party data relationships that help them understand fans as much as possible to personalise their experience.

I also spend a lot of time talking with public sector bodies and government sports federations interested in participation in sport. There are some really damning trends around decreasing physical activity and its links with health problems that put a huge strain on the budget of a government and health services providers.
I'll spend a lot of time working with them on what they can do to encourage people to go out and be more active. This is at every level, from five-year-olds to 75-year-olds, because everyone has different needs, so we work on really varied things when it comes to participation.

I love that I get to move between elite and highly commercial sport and the more community-focused side. Sport has had a huge impact on my life and I still play as much sport as I possibly can, so it's still an extremely rewarding thing for me.

HyphenWhat inspired you to set up your own consultancy? Was there a particular moment that made you think you were ready for the next step?

Fred Burdon

There was no single reason really. I had done four and a half years of McKinsey, which was great, and I learned a lot, but I was ready for something different, and there were things I wanted to prioritise more – my own ventures and things outside of work.

Being independent means there is much more flexibility - you can adjust your workload to make sure you're able to enjoy other parts of your life. I felt confident I was ready as I'm quite entrepreneurial, plus I had a clear speciality. I find it rewarding to work in sport – it's an area where I have knowledge, contacts and real-life lived experience in it in a variety of guises, so that's what I want to keep doing.

HyphenAfter starting your business, you partnered with us – how did that come about and can you tell us a bit about the engagement?

Fred Burdon

Michael approached me via LinkedIn about a project working with a government client that is hosting a mass-participation sports event. They were looking for that to be a catalyst for increasing physical activity across a variety of age groups, so we helped them with the strategy for that event and looked at how to get it off the ground.

It went really well, and it was a fantastic experience for me - the client was top class and great to work with, it is an exciting event and working with Hyphen was very smooth.

HyphenHow did the approach for this project differ from some of the others you have done elsewhere?

Fred Burdon

One of the things I enjoyed most was being able to focus on the project itself. Michael was excellent at empowering the consultants and experts, was very clear at the outset about what everyone’s respective roles were, and what he expected. That meant I felt very able to speak candidly with the client and give them what they wanted. It was a very pure form of consulting and really utilised my skillset.

The second thing that stood out about Hyphen was the behind-the-scenes stuff, which was excellent. The contracting was very smooth, Chronos is a great product, and the support team was extremely responsive. As an independent, the lag between invoicing and payment can create quite a big financial hole, especially if you're doing a lot of travelling and you're paying for expenses yourself, but Hyphen completely negated that risk.

Fred Burdon

I do still play a lot of sport, whether that be non-contact rugby, basketball or something else. I do a lot of physical challenge stuff - hikes, endurance events, those sorts of things - which keeps me busy. I don't want to sound like a one-dimensional person, but I do watch a lot of sport and follow my teams closely!

I'm also lucky to live in one of the best cities in the world, London, so I get to spend a lot of time enjoying everything there is to do here.