Interview with Anett Fodor, the Advisor of the Presidency
Anett Fodor, is the advisor of the BAIS presidency from the very beginning. Check out our latest interview from our Meet the team series and learn about all the international experience Anett has, which includes working at one of the UEFA's or FINA's mega sports events. Besides, you can read a wonderful story about her position at BAIS, her favorite experiences, and future goals as well!
Please, tell me more about yourself and your connection to sports!
I am a freelancer sports manager with 10+ years’ experience, owning relevant leadership skills through different sports events with UEFA, FISU, or FINA. I am a member of the Hungarian Olympic Committee Women and Sport Commission and ENGSO Youth Committee. I own a master’s degree in Sport Management and thanks to living abroad in a few countries I speak seven languages.
What kinds of sports do you do?
In my free time, I enjoy doing fencing, kickboxing, yoga, or swimming. I also very much like to be in nature so I do trekking or horse-riding whenever I can.
Tell me about your experience at the EURO2020!
One of the most challenging and exciting jobs I ever had, it opened up another level of the international sports world for me. I am really grateful for the experience I could gain.
I enjoyed very much working with my core team and also with our long-term volunteers.
During the operational period, we had a great volunteer team onsite including thousands of individuals from different nationalities.
EURO 2020 has not happened as it was planned originally, but I think we were really lucky in Budapest that we could have a full house of fans, so we got to enjoy the atmosphere of the event. However, the majority of the venues had reduced capacity for the fans which made it hard to create the real feeling of EUROs.
What is your connection to BAIS? How did you become a member of the board?
I used to work at the Physical Education University of Budapest at the International Directorate when I met Bence who joined the university as a PhD student. He made a post in the Facebook groups looking for like-minded people who would like to help foreign young people fit into the local community through sport while they live in Hungary. As I was a student also myself abroad and I was involved with sports I found the idea really great. So, we started to work on its implementation. First, we started as an informal group then it got naturally extended with more and more members and volunteers. Back then we called ourselves ISAB, but in 2016 we became an NGO registered by the Hungarian court and we had to change our name for BAIS. In, the beginning I was the Vice-President, then because of the limited time I had I started to contribute as an Advisor of the Board.
How does a day look like working in BAIS? What are the specific things you are responsible for?
Right now, I work as a Project Manager taking care of projects in connection with football and gender equality or inclusion through sports. We don’t have an office, so I work from home with different partner organizations around Europe. Depending on the project period it can be more time-consuming the job or less. The majority of the time we are placed at home and we travel to different events in connection with the projects.
Tell me about the projects you’re running and how COVID-19 has affected the organization!
In both of the projects, I am working on we are partners, not the coordinator organizations.
SPED project is coordinated by Nuorten Akademia from Finland and One Goal project by Active Youth from Lithuania. In both of the projects we have qualified and motivated partners, we just have troubles with COVID-restrictions to realize our events. We moved everything that we could online or postponed it.
However, both of the projects are going to have an intensive period next year as we have many activities congested for this period.
What kind of events do you like to organize? What was your favorite event of BAIS?
I enjoy being part of the large-scale events mostly, where there is a lot of challenge and the sport doesn’t really matter, the team is. I recently had a chance to work with the Hungarian Kayak-Canoe Federation, the Hungarian Football Federation, and with different NGOs such as Hope for Children Hungary. I can have a variety of different events and also a balance between grassroots sports and professional sports events.
In connection with BAIS, I enjoy representing the organization at different project meetings and I also like to have our core team together around Christmas time. Just the four of us with the presidency members because it reminds me where and how we have started. I also like to meet with the participants on hikes, I am always amazed by how diverse backgrounds they have and how many interesting things they do.
And what are your future goals?
I have plenty of ideas in my mind and I am very motivated to keep pushing my career forward.
I would like to build up a successful, international freelancer background now and I also started to learn French.
According to my experience and success in this field, we will see what the future will bring for me.
Find out more about the BAIS team members here.
Budapest, 2021.11. 09.
Meet the author:
Dorottya Rekecki
"I truly believe that sport has the power to make changes in terms of social inclusion. At BAIS, we are using this beloved tool for that within our projects and events, and I am so grateful for being part of this community where you can learn a lot."
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