
The life after rugby series is all about shining a light on our athletes as business professionals. Rugby isn’t a long career and it’s important that players begin preparation for life after rugby , while still playing. This series will profile each of our athletes and demonstrate the steps they have taken to a career post rugby and why they will make great employees in the future.
After starting rugby at the age of eight, debuting in 2017 for the Ireland sevens team at the Exeter leg of the Rugby Europe Sevens Grand Prix Series, and culminating in representing Ireland during the 2020/2021 Olympics, Adam Leavy recently announced his retirement. His Instagram post on the topic stated, “I have achieved everything I set out for with the sport and so it was after great deliberation I’ve decided it’s time for me to step away in order to focus on a new chapter of my life.”
Outside of professional rugby, Adam Leavy studied Commerce at NUI Galway and graduated in 2019. He recognises that this degree gave him a broad knowledge of the business world, saying, “it’s a good degree in that it touches on all different aspects of business.” Ultimately, this degree gave him a good foundation which he was able to use moving forwards. After completion, he recognised an interest in investing which led him to do an internship for a stock broking firm which had connections to Rugby Players Ireland. This then inspired him to focus his drive to pursue a career in investment and so he decided to do a masters in finance at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School from 2020 to 2021. He has just recently started working at Goodbody Stockbrokers and is excited for the next steps of his career.
What’s your career goal?
“I’d like to become a portfolio manager, owning my own book of clients and investing on their behalf. That’s obviously the end goal and there’s a lot of stepping stones in the run up to getting there. I’ve only really just started on that career so it’s a long road ahead. But between the skills and attributes I’ve gained throughout my rugby career will hopefully make the transition a little more seamless and should fast-track me in that direction too.”
Adam Leavy has an in-depth plan in place in order to reach this end goal and acknowledges that it “will be a long process but I’m looking forward to the challenge.”
What skills has rugby given you that has helped you in your professional business career?
“I’ve been juggling two things at once pretty much my whole life – between my degree and rugby and then my masters and rugby. So the first thing you need to be is extremely organised in that regard, just planning out your days, weeks, months in advance. That’s definitely transferrable over into the world of investments and portfolio managers in regards to looking after your clients and making sure you’re organised on their behalf. In the 7s environment – it’s a quick game and you have to be able to think on your feet under a high amount of pressure. When it comes to the business world, that’s what you have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. It’s an attribute that I can definitely see coming to my advantage when it comes to my career.”
Although Adam has chosen to retire from rugby and pursue a career in finance, there are notable skills gained through his participation in professional rugby that can be used in his business career moving forwards. These made him strong in his career on the pitch and will surely make him even stronger in his career off the pitch.
We wish the very best to Adam in this next chapter!