Presenting the key expert lecturers

With the 1^st session of the Sport Management and Leadership Training Programme approaching soon – 16-23 October 2016 – the time has come to reveal some of the expert lecturers that are going to lead the training programme. They were selected carefully to meet the needs of participants. A number of international and/or European experts will help participants improve their competencies in the field of good governance, strategic management, human resources management, financial management, marketing management and organisation of major sport events, and a special leadership training will take place throughout the course of the training programme.

The session will start with the lectures of Denis Musso. Denis Musso has a background in physical education, political sciences and he specialized in sport management and sport law. From 1991 until 2013 he was a professor in INSEP Paris, the main elite sport centre in France where he was responsible for the Department of Management, Economics and Law. He has a long experience in training and counselling of athletes, as well as in research in the area of sport at local and international level. He has specialized in elite and professional sport policy for many years. He is a member of the legal and disciplinary commission of the French Basketball League, and has also played a role in the professional football coaches training. He has published widely articles, reports and contributions to books, especially on the status of the athlete and professional sport. At the international level he has been a member of the MEMOS team from the first MEMOS programme as tutor and later as module leader for the Human Resources Management module of the MEMOS programme in French. From 1998 until 2007 he was Board Member of the European Association for Sport Management. He has also participated as researcher or as expert in a range of studies commissioned at the European level.

Diego Nepi Molineris is the Marketing and Development Director of the Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano (CONI). Since 2005 he has held the position of Director of Sports Facilities and of Parco Foro Italico of CONI Servizi, the company which is owned by the Ministry of Finance. Following the joint venture between the Italian Sport Federations and CONI Servizi, he has been holding the following positions: Operating Director of Internazionali BNL d’Italia; General Director of the Executive Committee of the Golden Gala Diamond League Athletics Rome event; General Director of the Tournament 6 Nations Rugby for the Italian events; Director of the International Swimming Meeting 7 Colli. He holds teaching positions in the following educational programmes: Master in Olympic Management at the CONI’s School of Sport; Sports Management Course at the Creative Master Luiss Business Center; Law and Sport Management at the Link Campus University MBA.

Umberto Trulli is a senior management consultant with expertise in different fields, such as strategic decision making, execution, review and improvement, performance management, organisational growth strategies, cross cultural negotiation, etc. He is a certified quality management system lead auditor with specific expertise in design, implementation, audit and improvements in different industries including the sport industry, and an international trainer and lecturer on strategic management, management of integration systems, process optimisation, multicultural negotiations, e-business, self-awareness, personal development, leadership, etc.

Boris Balent is in charge of the leadership training programme which aims to strengthen participants’ leadership competencies, such as the ability to effectively manage and guide group efforts, the ability to influence actions and opinions of other, the ability to start and persist with specific courses of action while exhibiting high motivation and a sense of urgency, etc. Boris Balent is co-founder and president of Croatian Association of Sport Psychologists. Currently he is working as a sport psychologist of the senior team at FC Dinamo Zagreb. He holds a master degree in psychology and a special license in the field of sport psychology. Currently he is completing his PhD on the mindset in sport environment. He is assistant professor on several Universities in Croatia and Slovenia, lecturing on sport psychology and communication skills. He is also an expert associate at the Croatian Olympic Committee, working on projects in the domain of sport psychology. He is a co-author of sport psychology handbook “Introduction to Sport Psychology: Handbook for coaches”. Although his main profession is a psychological preparation of top-level athletes and teams, he is well experienced in the field of human resources management.

Tomislav Belovari is a certified trainer in career and management – management and leadership development, didactic and pedagogical issues related to development and delivery of training – as well as a certified trainer for the EU Project Cycle Management. He has a vast experience and skills as a trainer, lecturer, moderator on different EU topics, and a high understanding of normal personality differences including self-understanding and development, career development and exploration, organisation development, team building, management and leadership training, problem solving, education and curriculum development, academic counselling, training in diversity and multicultural awareness. He has successfully completed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator programme and holds a MBTI certificate.

Jacopo Tognon is the attorney at law – specialised on sport law at both national and European level – with more than 15 years of experience. He was admitted before the High Supreme Courts in Italy as of 2012. He was appointed as arbitrator and chairman in more than 50 cases at the  Court of Arbitration for Sport. He is the president of the Federal Appeal Court of National Cycling Federation and of the Panel of the labour disputes between clubs and football players, league B. He is a lecturer with 10 years of experience at the University of Padova, University of Venice and at the link Campus University of Rome. He has published more than 25 publications as separate volume, journal papers and papers. He was a speaker in more than 150 conferences and/or courses on sport related topics at both national and international level.

A special guest lecturer will be the deputy director at the European Olympic Committees EU Office Matthias Van Baelen. He is going to present good governance tools that were developed during the implementation of another European project Support the Implementation of Good Governance in Sport – the collaborative partnership supported by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. The main objective of the project is to promote and support good governance in sport by providing practical guidance to National Olympic Committees and National Federations on how to implement principles of good governance in order to enhance governance of their organisations.

The list of experts continues with respectable names such as Zrinko Čustonja, professor at the University of Zagreb, scientific author and researcher, and president of the Croatian Academic Sports Federation, Danira Nakić Bilić – former star basketball player who won the title of the European’s most valuable player three times in a row and received a number of different recognitions and awards for her contribution to sport – currently working as a manager in the Croatian Olympic Academy, and other equally respectable experts in the field such as Dražana Halar, Vitalijus Vasiliauskas and Besim Aliti.