Club News

Albion Academy pull off Ankersen coup

Bestselling author to give speech on performance development

ALBION’S Academy have pulled off a coup by booking bestselling author Rasmus Ankersen to speak tomorrow (Thursday) to players, parents and coaching staff about performance development.

The impact of Saido Berahino and George Thorne in the Baggies’ first team in recent seasons has brought the Academy’s impressive work to prominence.

But the staff are determined not to rest on their laurels and are continually searching for new ways of improving.

And Ankersen - a trusted advisor to businesses and athletes around the world - is the latest guest speaker the Academy have signed up as part of their education process to provide crucial insights into what it takes to become a leading sportsman.

Albion Academy Manager Mark Harrison said: “It is important our young players realise the sacrifices you have to make to become an elite sportsman.

“Our performance coach Tom Bates met Rasmus at a conference in London and, with several of our staff having been enlightened by his books, we were eager for our players to hear him speak.

“We never stand still and are always looking into different ways to ensure the lads have the best tools at their disposal to build the strong mentality needed to be a modern-day footballer.”

Ankersen wrote his first book ‘The DNA of a Winner’ at the age of 22.

A year later he published his second ‘Leader DNA’, which is based on the field studies of 25 high-profile leaders, and has sold more than 40,000 copies.

With his third book ‘The Gold Mine Effect’ – now published in more than 15 countries – he took another step into the secrets of high performance, becoming the only expert on the subject who has literally lived a trained with the best athletes on the planet.

Ankersen lives in London and is teaching organisations how to build their own gold mines of talent.

Among his clients are organisations such as LEGO, Facebook, Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey & Company, IKEA, Rotman Business School, Nasdaq, Ernst & Young and many more.

He has also featured on Sky News Business, CBC, The Morning Show and Fox Sports.

And he is a regular columnist in several business magazines, among them the Chinese CEIBS.