Into touch - Aoife Clarke: Leadership, risk-taking, and reframing communications in sport
By Scott Dougal
For this month’s webinar we were fortunate enough to be joined by Aoife Clarke, Director of Communications at the Irish Rugby Football Union.
Having spent over 15 years in the results-driven world of supermarket retail with Lidl, she has made the switch to the results-driven world of national teams and everything else that goes with a leadership position in a national governing body.
She spoke about the differences she has noticed since making the journey from the corporate sector to sport, as well as some of the similarities. She’s an advocate for women’s sport and spoke about her own career managing maternity leave and childcare. Watch the webinar and you can also find out the correct pronunciation of Lidl.
Aoife had excellent advice for anyone starting out in a career in communications, feel the fear and do it anyway: “Taking risks and not being afraid to put yourself out there has always benefited me. It's sort of how I got some of my early career moves, I suppose was not being afraid. Even this job with the IRFU, in my head, I was like: ‘Oh, there's loads of people working in sports - they'd be way more qualified than me.’ So what I would say to younger people is: take the chance.”
On the role of volunteers of sport: “When I was preparing for my second interview, I spoke to a previous union committee member who, and it's always stuck with me, he said to me: ‘I probably set aside, about 25 hours a week for my union committee work.’ The people who do it are the people who have a genuine love and an interest for the game and want to see it grow so they're generally very easy to work with. But that's probably one of the biggest lessons coming from a corporate world into sport.”
On why communications in a governing body is much more than talking to sportswriters and managing social media: “First and foremost, people probably see the media side of it - so the rugby writers and the social channels. But for me, it's obviously much deeper than that. We cover the entire game - we have a couple of hundred school kids in the Aviva today on an Aldi play rugby programme. And then there's the additional more corporate-type inquiries of things that are happening or we're publishing our financial statements or having our AGM. So it's everything - it's not just a national team.”
On what sport can learn from other sectors when it comes to communications: “In sports, you can get into a bubble. It can be very focused on that tournament, and everything is on that moment or it's on that game, and people exist in that bubble and there's nothing else outside of it. There's so many other places we can talk about rugby.”
On why reputation management should be a business priority: “The better a reputation we have, the more likely sponsors and everything will want to be with us and, potentially, we can unlock more government funding because we're trusted to spend it properly. It's important for all of those things.”
On changing the plan for the Ireland women’s team: “I approached a lot of them individually and said, ‘Look, I'm new, I'd really like to understand you know the challenges that you guys face and what you think we could do better as a team.’ And so they spoke to me and they were great. They were so honest and direct about the challenges that they faced. And that direct engagement has really helped build a bond with the team.”
On managing maternity leave while switching jobs: “As I went through the process and then got offered the job and they were like, ‘Oh, you know, just checking, do you think you get out of your notice period a bit earlier and start?’ And I was like, ‘Well actually, I've got a 10-week-old baby. So I don't think that's going to be possible.’ I have to say they were just so fantastic. They, you know, the IRFU straight away said, ‘Look, you tell us when you want to start, like no pressure, you just tell us the start date.’”
