Jean-Laurent Bourquin is the IOC’s Sports Senior Manager. A law graduate (who wrote a thesis on “TV rights in Sports Broadcasting”) with a specialization in HR management, he started his career providing counselling to athletes. He was also a teacher, and has worked in a bank and for a movie producer.
In 1994, he took a post at the brand new Olympic Museum, establishing the legal structure before joining the IOC HQ in 1997 to develop and implement HR services. In early 2001, he changed to Olympic Solidarity to work with NOCs worldwide, focussing on Africa. Besides managing coaches’ assistance programs, he developed the Young Athletes section and more specifically talent identification programmes. In 2004, he moved to the Sports department to follow up Olympic Games activities and relations with International Federations.
Jean-Laurent joined the ACP project – keeping all his other responsibilities – in 2009 after having shown an interest in the challenges faced by athletes over a period of 20 years.
Married, with two children, Jean-Laurent has attended seven Olympic Games. As a youth, he organised games for the children of his home city, with self-recorded national anthems, wooden podiums and homemade medals. Aside from sport, he is also interested in modern painting, history and geography, politics and chess.