The Thunder bowler shares valuable experience of working at Sky with her cricketing peers.
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Phoebe Graham urges fellow cricketers to attend the Futures Conference as early as possible in their respective careers.
Graham has already started working towards her career after cricket after attending the Conference last year. The 32-year-old pacer already possesses valuable experience working in the corporate world for organisations like Johnson & Johnson and Sky.
She plans to combine her previous work experience together with her learnings from last year’s Futures Conference as part of her personal development.
The 2024 Futures Conference will take place on 6 and 7 November at St. George’s Park, the training base of the England football team, and will be open to all past and present players. The event is packed with workshops and seminars which are targeted towards building a player’s career on and off the field.
It allows past and present players to get together and network amongst themselves and several career experts which enables them to understand and fill in their skill sets.
In the weeks leading up to the Futures Conference, the PCA will share stories from previous attendees and shed light on how the event benefitted them in their personal development.
This week read how Graham believes that the learnings necessary to succeed outside the cricketing field are attainable whilst playing the game. She also shares her experience of working in the marketing field before she turned professional three years ago.
- What were your motivations behind attending the 2023 Futures Conference?
- Graham: I wanted to spend a couple of days dedicated to myself and what my future looks like. I’ve worked in corporate before, because I didn’t turn professional until I was 29 and haven’t really thought about how I can blend the two worlds of professional sport and corporate experience together, so I wanted to use the time to really think about what’s next. It’s just a good time to explore different options for what your career looks like outside of cricket and by dedicating two days to it, the Conference gives you the space and time to think about personal development and reflect away from other day-to-day responsibilities.
- What were your key learnings and takeaways from the Futures Conference?
- Graham: One of the big things we started with was the value workshop and what was important to you. It does not matter whether you’re in an organisation, a business or a sports team, values are so imperative to being happy. That was really good just to start at the core of what you need from a culture and environment point to make sure that you’re looking for careers in the right places.
- You have had first-hand experience of being in the corporate world. How would you describe that experience to your fellow cricketing peers?
- Graham: I worked for six or seven years in marketing, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm and it was a very different world to the cricket world. However, there are a lot of similarities like continuously wanting to grow and evolve, challenge yourself and being part of a team. You learn a lot of skills playing cricket that are really applicable to the corporate world or the marketing world. Your experience as an athlete is significantly greater than you probably think. It puts you in great stead for any career outside of cricket. It is just trying to figure out what you want to do within it. The day-to-day experiences were very, very different – creating advertising campaigns, working through finances, budgeting and profit and loss statement. So, there was a lot to it. But you do learn a lot of these things through playing and managing yourself.
- According to you, what is the ideal time for cricketers to start focusing on their second career?
- Graham: The Conference is actually designed to suit every age of cricketer. I actually believe the younger you go on it the better because you can broaden your horizons earlier in your career. There are also things around financial management and pension planning, which the earlier you do, the better. So, although the Conference probably sounds like it’s for those people later on in the career, it’s just as important for those at the start of their career that they’re thinking about how they maximise their opportunities and also look at things to balance their life as well.
- What advice would you give to players who are looking to attend the 2024 Futures Conference?
- Graham: Just go in with an open mind. You are never too young or too old to sign up for the Futures Conference. Just enjoy, meet new people learn more about the future. It also does not matter what age you are or what stage you are in your cricket career. It is just a really good self-reflection for two days that can help progress in your career going forward in cricket and outside cricket.
PCA Futures Conference is open to all past and present players.
Please register your interest by clicking the button below and filling in the form as there are limited places available.
