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From Queen’s Lane to San Siro Stadium Current student, Tomas Dwyer (2020, Modern Languages) sat down earlier this year with alumnus Ivan Gazidis (1983, Jurisprudence), current CEO of AC Milan, to chat about his career in sport since leaving the Hall.
“Definitely very rowdy”, is how Ivan Gazidis, ex CEO of Arsenal and current CEO of AC Milan, recalled the atmosphere at his Cuppers final appearance playing up front for the Hall in 1983. “The thing that sticks with you most are the moments. There are certain moments at Teddy Hall whose importance you won’t appreciate until much later in life.” One of those moments came when Professor Adrian Briggs allowed him to switch courses. “He believed and put his trust in me to make the switch from Physics to Jurisprudence and I’ll always be grateful to him for that.” Ivan also looks back fondly upon the relationships nurtured at the Hall: “Relationships made at the
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Hall have a depth to them which you can’t recreate later in life, it’s really special.” He also emphasises that it is a time in which mistakes will be made: “There is an expectation now that you guys should have everything figured out and be perfect. When I look back to when I was at Teddy Hall… I had no idea who I was, what I was doing, or who I wanted to become.” Upon graduating Ivan began practising law in London, before asking for an overseas placement. He was given one in Los Angeles working for Latham and Watkins. It was here over a round of golf that his career path swung towards the world of sports management. “A friend told me he had an idea to start a football
league in America, and I said, ‘I want to help you with that’. Two weeks later I’d permanently moved from London to LA.” Despite facing “a huge amount of scepticism”, including the LA Times dubbing it “Mythical League Soccer”, Major League Soccer (MLS) has seen astounding growth in a hyper-competitive American sports market. It cemented Ivan’s view that “the one guarantee is that life will not turn out as you expect it. I had a stroke of incredible luck with that meeting and wasn’t stupid enough to turn down the opportunity.” After spending the best part of 15 years working on the MLS he returned to London in 2008 to become CEO at Arsenal; a role that comes with the unique corporate
