The transition from the glory of competitive sport to the daily reality of the job market represents one of the most complex challenges in an athlete’s life. To respond to this need, Samsung Electronics Italia, Randstad Italia and Salesforce have joined forces in the Now to Next project, an orientation and professional retraining initiative that has just completed its first successful edition.
The program, carried out in close collaboration with the Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026 and the Athletes Commissions of CONI and CIP, accompanied twenty-five athletes in a structured path to transform athletic talent into managerial and technological value.
The central objective was to valorize the resilience and leadership heritage typical of sport, integrating it with the digital skills now indispensable to navigate successfully in the world of business.
Now to Next: when Artificial Intelligence and digital technologies guide the professional future of athletes
The training path unfolded over six intense weeks, during which participants benefited from coaching sessions, training, and moments of direct exchange with mentors and high-level professionals.
Samsung brought to the project the consolidated experience of its Innovation Campus, focusing on spreading a digital culture through modules dedicated to cutting-edge topics such as Generative Artificial Intelligence and prompt design.
The approach adopted aimed to present technological innovation as a human-centric tool, capable of placing the unique characteristics of each individual at the center of a professional transition accelerated by technology itself.
The contribution of Salesforce was equally crucial, guiding the training toward the emergent technologies most in demand by modern companies, including CRM and Data Analytics.
Through these sessions, the athletes could acquire practical mastery of the tools needed to drive digital change, demonstrating that innate qualities such as pressure management and goal orientation are excellent foundations on which to graft new technological capabilities.
Parallel to that, Randstad Italia oversaw the career coaching aspect, helping participants recognize how discipline and the ability to work as a team, developed on the playing fields, represent transversal skills of invaluable value to the contemporary economy.
The results of this first edition confirmed the validity of a model that sees in the synergy between sports institutions and large companies the key to building real opportunities.
Valentina Marchei, President of the CONI National Athletes Commission, emphasized how Now to Next represents only the beginning of a commitment that aims to become structural and replicable over time. Investing in the future of athletes beyond their competitive careers means not only honoring their past commitment, but also enriching the world of work with leaders capable of combining the tenacity of sport with the strategic vision guaranteed by digital innovation and artificial intelligence.
