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"You can read a resume and get the technical skills all you want, but you cannot assess somebody's intangibles. And usually, athletes bring all those intangibles to the table."
Andrew Kemper, Investment Banker, Capital West Partners
Andrew Kemper knows what it looks like on both sides of the hiring table. He played professional hockey before transitioning into investment banking at Capital West Partners, one of Canada's leading independent investment banks. Today he is the one making hiring decisions. And the lens he uses to evaluate candidates is shaped directly by his athletic background.
His perspective is not sentimental. It is practical. He has seen what athletes bring to a business environment, watched them outperform peers with more traditional credentials, and built a team where three of the four partners are former university athletes. That is not a coincidence. It is a pattern.
The Thing Resumes Cannot Tell You
Every hiring manager knows the limitation of a resume. It tells you where someone went to school, what roles they have held, and what technical skills they have developed. It does not tell you whether they will show up early, push through a difficult quarter, take critical feedback without shutting down, or compete every single day against their own performance from the week before.
Those traits, the ones that actually separate top performers from average ones, are what Andrew calls intangibles. And his argument is straightforward: athletes have them by default.
"Whether that is work ethic, commitment, resilience, competitive nature. All of those things are things that you cannot read off a resume. But the people that are going to be on Free Agent are going to have those things."
Andrew Kemper, Capital West Partners
This is not a new observation. A Cornell University study found that 80 percent of Fortune 500 executives played college sports. An Ernst and Young survey showed that 96 percent of women in C-suite positions were former athletes. The data has been pointing to the same conclusion for years. The companies that are acting on it fastest are the ones building the strongest teams.
What Three of Four Partners Being Athletes Actually Means
When Andrew mentions that three of the four partners at Capital West Partners are former university athletes, he is not making a casual observation. He is describing a hiring culture that has produced a partnership.
Investment banking is one of the most demanding career paths available. Long hours, high stakes client relationships, intense analytical pressure, and a performance culture that rewards results and does not tolerate complacency. It is, in many ways, the closest thing in finance to competitive sport.
The athletes who make it to partner level in a firm like Capital West are the ones who applied the same discipline to their career that they applied to their sport. They studied harder, stayed later, took feedback without ego, and competed against their own numbers the way they competed against opponents on the ice, the court, or the field.
Andrew's journey from professional hockey to investment banking is not a story about leaving sport behind. It is a story about redirecting the competitive engine that sport built into an arena where it compounds over decades instead of seasons.
Why Business Owners Should Pay Attention
Andrew's message to business owners is direct. If you are hiring based on credentials alone, you are missing the most predictive signal available to you. The intangibles he describes are not soft. They are commercially valuable traits that drive retention, performance, and culture in ways that no certification or degree can replicate.
The business owners who figure this out earliest get a sourcing advantage before it becomes consensus. Right now the market still has not fully priced in how good athletes actually are in professional environments. The companies hiring through Free Agent are accessing that pool before their competitors recognize the opportunity.
"Most of our team are athletes of some degree. If I think about it, the four partners, three of us were university athletes. That obviously means something."
Andrew Kemper, Capital West Partners
It does mean something. It means that the traits built through years of competitive sport do not just help athletes survive in business. They help them lead it.
The Free Agent Difference
What makes Free Agent different from a standard job board is exactly what Andrew is describing. The verification process means every athlete in the network has competed at a level that demonstrates the intangibles he values. You are not sorting through unqualified applicants hoping to find someone with the right character. You are starting from a pool where that baseline is already established.
For athletes, Free Agent is the network that closes the translation gap. The one that connects competitive experience with the companies that understand its value, rather than leaving athletes to figure out on their own how to communicate a decade of high performance in corporate language.
Andrew Kemper went from the ice to the boardroom. The skills that got him there are the same ones that make him effective in both. That is the Free Agent thesis. And it is being proven every day by the athletes and companies building careers and teams inside the network.
If you are a business owner looking for people with the intangibles that actually move a company forward, Free Agent is where they are.
If you are an athlete building your next chapter, this is where the companies looking for exactly what you bring are waiting to connect with you.
Join Free Agent at gofreeagent.com
Frequently Asked Questions
Why should businesses hire former athletes?
Former athletes bring intangibles that cannot be assessed from a resume: work ethic, commitment, resilience, and competitive drive. These traits are built through years of high-performance competition and are among the most valuable predictors of long-term business performance. A Cornell University study found that 80 percent of Fortune 500 executives played college sports, reflecting how directly athletic experience translates to business leadership.
Can athletes transition into finance and investment banking?
Yes. Finance and investment banking reward the same traits that sport builds: discipline, performance under pressure, the ability to handle high-stakes decisions, and the drive to compete consistently over a long career. Andrew Kemper played professional hockey before becoming an investment banker at Capital West Partners, where three of the four partners are former university athletes.
What is Free Agent and how does it help businesses hire athletes?
Free Agent is a private network built exclusively for verified current and former elite athletes and the companies that want to work with them. Every athlete in the network has competed at a level that demonstrates the baseline traits businesses are hiring for. Companies can post roles, connect directly with candidates, and source from a verified talent pool without sorting through unqualified applicants. Learn more at gofreeagent.com.