Emily Lloyd graduated from the Daniels full-time Denver MBA program in 2023.
In 2008 and 2012, Emily Lloyd swam in the U.S. Olympic trials. Though she didn’t make the team all those years ago, she’s found her way to the Olympics in a new way. She’ll be at the Paris Paralympics with a press pass in hand, representing the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), where she serves as a performance pathway specialist.
While there, Lloyd, who earned her MBA at the Daniels College of Business in 2023, will have the opportunity to meet with athletes as they compete on the world’s biggest athletic stage and ask them about their experiences.
When she’s not playing her own role on Team USA, Lloyd’s day-to-day work involves fostering partnership between the USOPC, the NCAA and individual colleges. Her work in Paris will be an extension of that role, providing colleges and universities with invaluable content from athletes who have been through their programs.
“I’m excited to just get the Games experience. I’ve heard from everyone at the organization that it’s really crucial just to be in there and see how millions of people come together for one event,” Lloyd said as she prepared to pack up and make her way to Paris. “I’m excited to meet people and be face to face with athletes and learn more about their college experiences.”
An athlete herself, Lloyd is proud to work for an organization that combines competition with partnership to achieve big things, such as bringing home the most gold medals of any country. Each USOPC employee plays their part in achieving that singular goal—something Lloyd says she hasn’t experienced in other sectors.
“To be competitive about that goal means to work as hard as you can to do everything in your power that under your role and your responsibility to get us there. Partnership is required,” Lloyd explained.
Improving relationships between coaches and athletes
While Lloyd is soaking up the opportunity to make critical connections with the sporting world, and particularly the NCAA, the USOPC isn’t the final stop on her journey. Lloyd started her career working in nonprofits focused on domestic violence education and prevention. In her role, she learned about what healthy relationships look like and how to teach people the skills to maintain respect and boundaries in them.
During that time, she experienced a light bulb moment, connecting her knowledge around relationships with her time as an athlete at the University of Virginia.
“There’s a lot of coaches out there, including some of the coaches that I had in college, who treated us really, really poorly, and I don’t think that they did that on purpose,” she said. “If they had different tools, I think they could have coached us better and coached us differently. I didn’t experience the worst kind of behavior ever, but that doesn’t mean that my coaches couldn’t have done better and that they didn’t do things that hurt me.”
This realization sparked a business idea, that Lloyd has already set into motion. She hopes to one day act as a consultant, bringing her domestic violence knowledge and understanding of athletics to the college sphere, where she can help strengthen the crucial relationships between athletes and their coaches.
Getting her MBA at the University of Denver was a critical stop on her path, solidifying her business knowledge and giving her hands-on experience. She participated in Entrepreneurship@DU’s BASE Camp summer accelerator program, where, over the course of six months, she gained valuable insights on emotional intelligence and branding, and had the opportunity to put her idea into practice.
She interviewed 100 potential clients, submitted a budget, identified three workshop models and was able to test them in real time.
“The fact that I was in this program forced me to reach out to athletic departments teams and coaches and say, ‘Hey, can I test out these educational models with your team?’ And it actually gave me my first three pilot workshops,” she said. “I was able to collect data and like learn what worked and what didn’t. So, for me, it was the boost to get started.”
The program also gave her the experience of what working as a full-time entrepreneur might look like. Before jumping in fully, Lloyd plans to spend time developing her connections, better understanding the sports world—and of course, soaking up her time at the 2024 Paralympics.