A Sunset in Hawaii: Nik Berger’s Career

This is the story of a career that deserves to be called a 360° perspective on sport. He started out as a professional athlete, went on to manage other athletes, worked as a key accountant for a sports magazine, moved into sports policy and finally headed up an association that helps professional athletes make the transition from sport to life. Nik Berger’s career not only shows how his different positions and roles in the field have interacted and built on each other, but it also illustrates a career in a field that has changed a lot over the course of his own career, and of ways of crossing and expanding the boundaries of the career field, always with an anchor or focus on professional sport. His career includes participating in Olympic Games, winning European Championships, acting as an entrepreneur to attract sponsorship, gaining experience in sales, developing a strategy for elite sport and helping athletes prepare for their post-competitive careers. Nik Berger is also an example of the accumulation and conversion of different forms of career capital, such as knowledge, skills, abilities and social contacts, and how these forms gain value in relation to the field. In addition, his experiences in different functional local environments shaped his decisions, such as the day he witnessed an amazing sunset in Hawaii.