Keynote Speaker

Book a presentation from Optima Football and get inspired.

Founder of Optima Football Consulting, Mads Davidsen, has in the past decade done many presentations for companies, clubs, organisations and universities. The lectures covers the down below subjects and will be arranged and planned so it suits the needs of your organisation.

• A talent development discussion across cultures, diversity and continents: “How to manage the unmanageable?”
• Strategy & club models: “How to build and implement a strategy to fulfil your vision over time in?
• “The future game”: What are the demands of the modern game and how can align our strategy to the next decade?
• Motivation & feedback culture: “How do we lead and motivate other people”? - including empirical field study cases from my (w/Helle Hein) book “With great talent comes great responsibility

Endorsements

Head of Scouting, Match Analysis and Diagnosis at DfB (German Football Federation), Christofer Clemens

It was a pleasure to have Mads Davidsen as a guest speaker in our DFB Management in Professional Football course. Mads’ insights and experience on how to develop a healthy club strategy within a high-performance football environment was very inspiring and helpful for our next generation of football leaders. He delivered many exciting impulses that should be used in the daily work routine of any Technical and Sporting Director.

Professor & Director of the Center of Sport and Management at WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management, Sascha L. Schmidt

Mads has been among the most inspiring speakers at SPOAC. His speeches are top notch - qualitatively as well as energetically. It is always a real pleasure to listen to him.

Managing Director, Ahmet Hizal, FOCUS Education, Sporting Directors program

Mads was invited to give a lecture at FOCUS - Sporting Directors program on the subject of forming a sporting strategy and aligning a recruitment strategy into the sporting strategy based on various circumstances.


Mads’ experiences in football in completely different regions and cultures was a strong point that we were keen to have him in our program. And, he went simply beyond inspiring our students. His knowledge and expertise and additionally his experience led a valuable and insightful lecture for our students who have an aim to take their first professional steps to football-club management.

He demonstrated clear and actionable insights into forming a sporting and recruitment strategy for football clubs.

CEO at Insightview.eu, Carsten Bonde Pedersen

Mads has given some very interesting lectures on coaching and developing of employees in China. These have been highly appreciated by Insightview.eu’s clients from the financial sector in Europe and the United States.

And furthermore; for those of us who also love football and everyone else, the lectures have been entertaining, but also a valuable experience that helped to understand the cultural gap between Europe and China.

General Manager at the Danish Chamber of Commerce in China, Jakob B. Pedersen

Mads Davidsen is a true insider and analyst of European-, Asian- and in particular Chinese football. He is a profound and articulated speaker who masters the art of speaking in an understandable language while touching upon complicated topics, such as motivational tactics, the science of modern football, cross cultural communication etc.

Mads’ presentation of Chinese and Asian football is by no means just a mere insight into football itself, but also touches on broader topics relevant to recurrent business challenges in China.

Worth high lightening was the heated Q&A session following his presentation of “Chinese vs. International talent development” and its reminiscent to the troubles experienced by the Danish business community in China, especially in relation to motivating and maintaining Chinese talent.

Ph.D.-Researcher - Kenneth Cortsen - Department of Sport Management & Experience Industry - Business Development Strategist - University College of Northern Denmark

I invited Mads to give a lecture at UCN Sport Management for all our current and former sport management students about his experiences with talent management in a football environment. He is a young, energetic and smart individual.

He delivered a fantastic performance that blended informative facts with a good sense of humor.

Moreover, Mads exceeded all expectations in the sense that many of his experiences go beyond the football environment for what reason they can also be applied in other sports settings as well as in the business world.

It was also very interesting to listen to his perception of the differences between the Chinese and Danish sports environments and to gain insights into constructive aspects of sports motivation, performance optimization. I will recommend Mads to any organization, which desires to learn about how to find the right way to progress.

Associate Professor - Kristian Raun Thomsen - Section of Sport Science - Dep. Public Health - Aarhus University

At Section of Sport Science, Aarhus University we had the pleasure of hearing Mads Davidsen speak about his coaching and scouting experiences in China.

China is not a main stream country when it comes to talent development, and the identification process of talent! In many aspects the Chinese way is completely in opposition to a more holistic Danish talent approach.

It is my opinion that Mads in a much nuanced way and with bright insight showed us that, with lively narratives and personal experiences.

He has a lot of knowledge in the field of soccer, and he succeeded combing this with cultural issues and relevant research, ex. deliberate practice, (de)selection and identification challenges, which only made it more interesting.

I hereby give the best recommendation to Mads, and his performance as a lecturer.

Director – Leif Christian Mikkelsen – Team Copenhagen and TALENT-DK

TALENT-DK had the pleasure to invite Mads Davidsen to speak at our seminar where the focus was on the cultural aspects of talent development.

Mads illustrated in a very enthusiastic and well-articulated way his dilemmas in China dealing with building up a new talent academy and all his examples were of great interest and useful for all the people listening.

Mads also explained how it is extremely important to understand the culture of your organization if able to succeed with your project.

And this is why a lot of companies and people fail away from their home arena. Since the presentation from Mads, in TALENT-DK relations Mads’ examples have been debated many times as a very interesting and useful link in our organization.