Passion and the drive for excellence are well-known traits in sportsmen, but they are also attributes prized in standout employees. This shared value for talent is the foundation of the official partnership between job search platform foundit and the governing body for badminton, the Badminton World Federation (BWF), which was announced in a virtual media briefing on Monday, April 22.
“Both the BWF and foundit are enablers of success,” stated Sekhar Garisa, foundit CEO, during the briefing. “[Badminton] signals all the key virtues that we as foundit, as an organization, stand for…which is to show up every day, to never give up, to try and be the best that you can, and the continuous pursuit of excellence.”
This strategic, year-long collaboration entails that foundit will be the official talent partner for 20 significant championships — including the highly anticipated Thomas & Uber Cups, All England Open, Malaysia Open, Singapore Open, and the India Open. Consequently, foundit’s brand will feature on television and digital broadcasts of these events.
On top of these features, foundit will have booths, a hospitality box, and other integrations in select events. The BWF will also be rebranding their player profiles as “Super Player Profiles brought to you by foundit” as part of this collaboration.
The job search platform’s strategic partnership with the sport is slated to bring the talent platform a great deal of brand exposure. Badminton commands a diverse, global fanbase of 700 million and according to Owen Leed, BWF commercial and communications director, their broadcasts reach 500 million households across the world.
In this way, foundit’s brand presence during BWF events aims showcase the platform to a broad audience of job seekers and employers across various industries.
Additionally, badminton is particularly popular in foundit’s key markets across Asia, such as India, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and other Southeast Asian (SEA) countries.
Garisa even noted during the event that badminton is the most widely played recreational sport in India, with over 100 million followers, and that the dominance of this sport was “on a different level” in Southeast Asia.
“Badminton’s immense popularity in our core markets, particularly among young professionals, makes this partnership a powerful tool for engaging with the millions of job seekers and recruiters across the markets,” Garisa emphasized.
Besides brand exposure, through this partnership, foundit hopes to play a role in promoting badminton’s growth in Asia by partnering with grassroots academies to nurture players from India and SEA.
Thomas Lund, BWF secretary general and COO, shared: “We are thrilled to partner with foundit, a leading talent platform that shares our passion for excellence and talent development. Badminton is a sport built on dedication, hard work, and the pursuit of success — values that resonate deeply with foundit’s mission. By joining forces, we aim to inspire individuals to reach their full potential and make a lasting impact in their careers.”
Lund further commented on the possibility of extending the partnership beyond the initial year. “We very much see this as a long-term opportunity to work together beyond the year that we have an agreement for right now. Clearly, I think these kinds of partnerships connecting sport and company identities best work when you do it on a longer-term basis.”
