Commercial Sales Executive
Sheffield United Football Club

Kelly R

00:00:03 I’m Kelly R. My current job title here at Sheffield United is Commercial Sales Executive. I am responsible for everything that you see on a match day that’s kind of involved with football, so the advertising of the perimeter boards, in the programme, sponsorships, shirt sponsorships, stand sponsorships. My job is very varied. I mean all of the behind the scenes, the getting ready for the game, the selling of the packages, the going out and meeting clients.

00:00:29 When I was fifteen and I did my sort of work experience, I chose a restaurant and… purely because we knew the gentleman who ran the restaurant via family friends. They offered me a part-time job when the two weeks was up and I stayed there ever since, so from fifteen to sort of eighteen, and then from there I went onto kind of how it defined my choice of degree really or HND at the time.

00:00:54 I did my A levels, and I didn’t do fantastically well in my A levels. I didn’t get the results that I wanted. I was very upset and felt very low. I ran all the way home in tears because I was so upset. I kind of thought ‘No one will take me now, and all of my friends are going to go to university and I’ll be left behind. What am I going to do?’ It was really kind of I suppose the help of the teachers in clearing, you know, was really kind of helpful to me because they provided me with what is the next step. I went to do my HND in hospitality and tourism management, and then my fourth year on a top up. So out of, you know, not getting brilliant results in my A levels, I came out with a HND and a degree, which is fantastic. I didn’t think that by failing my A levels that that was the end for me. I honestly believed that there would be a little bit more and I would be able to kind of flourish in something.

00:01:51 Mum is a nursery nurse. And although I enjoyed, and I had helped my mum out sort of on open days and things like that, it wasn’t like a job that I really thought I wanted to do. I think she probably would have liked me to have done the same thing, but obviously when I got the opportunity to do catering and probably go onto further my career at either doing a HND or a degree then they all were really behind me because I was the first of my family to do that.

00:02:18 The gentleman who I previously worked for at the restaurant as opening a restaurant up at Bramhall Lane and said ‘Look, why don’t you come down and have an interview. I’m looking for an assistant manager’s position.’ Although I stayed with the restaurant, I was kind of moved into other job roles at the club. A job came up in the commercial department. I’d kind of worked closely with them anyway with match days, and the rest I suppose is there. They gave me a three-month trial and I’ve never looked back really.

00:02:41 I think the people that have had the biggest influence on my life, I suppose, back in the day when I started at the restaurant it will be the people there, the Bosworth family, and a gentleman called Marcus Lane, who kind of, when he bought the restaurant off them, sort of had the confidence in me to kind of look after the restaurant, and I was only twenty at the time but he kind of saw something in me which, you know, gave me a lot of confidence and helped me kind of go forth and do the catering side of the world.

00:03:12 In terms of my sort of work/life balance, if you like, it all kind of, at the moment, seems very much sort of blending into one. I’ve only really got the eight weeks out of the season where I can really probably separate the work/life balance and have a bit of a life. But working here, all the people are great, and all the staff are great, and there’s a very good sort of, kind of, staff community.

00:03:35 Sheffield United is a club that’s kind of going places, and it is probably the first sort of job that I’ve had that I can see a progression in my sort of career. They do help you kind of move onto the next level, if you like, and I suppose it’s nice to be able to know that that’s available to me because I don’t want to go on winding my way along forever.

00:03:58 End