FIFA Master Alumni - Where are they now? - Lace Hallendorff
Lace Hallendorff
Current Position: Strategic Planning & Analytics Trainee at FIFA
Year of graduation: 2025 (25th edition)
Nationality: South African
What does your current role involve?
Before the FIFA Master, I worked in management consulting, which honed my analytical thinking and client skills, but didn't give me much exposure to sport. I did a brief stint at a sports media agency before the programme too, which gave me a glimpse into the South African sports scene, but the FIFA Master was really my way in.
Since graduating, I've been based in Zurich working in FIFA's Strategy team within the Executive Office of the Secretary General. My work is largely data-focused, building and maintaining reporting tools in Power BI and Excel to support decision-making. Beyond that, I support the broader strategy function with presentations, and I occasionally work with the Bidding team on an ad hoc basis. The dashboards and reporting tools I work on feed into senior leadership. On the bidding side, I have supported site visits for upcoming FIFA events, compiling daily reports from the field and pulling everything together into a final summary at the end.
What I have enjoyed most about the role is the balance between some work which has pushed me into unfamiliar territory where I have learnt a lot, and some which has been areas where I feel confident and like I'm adding value. Having both has made for a really good start in the team.
In June, I head to Toronto for the Men’s World Cup, working with the Transport team. I'm very excited. It will be my first major event, and it doesn't get much bigger than the FIFA World Cup 2026TM!
Which aspects of the FIFA Master helped you most in your career?
It's still early days for me, of course. What I can say though is that it launched my career in sport from a standing start. I had almost no industry experience before the FIFA Master, and the course helped provide an understanding of how federations are structured, how governance works, how major events are planned and delivered, to name a few. None of that was familiar to me before, and that knowledge has been extremely beneficial for where I have now ended up.
The FIFA Master network is as valuable as everyone says it is. I am working at FIFA headquarters in Zurich where I am surrounded by course alumni, and that connection is real and active.
What advice would you give to future students?
I came in with no clear plan and that turned out to be fine. If anything, not being too attached to a specific outcome meant I stayed open to things I had not considered before. There were people in my class who arrived knowing exactly what they wanted, and the FIFA Master reshaped that for a lot of them too. It's a good environment in which to figure things out, whether you're starting from zero, starting over or just furthering your existing career in sport.
And make the most of the guest speakers. The programme brings in people from all across the industry, and if something piques your interest, just go and talk to them. In my experience they were always happy to chat and share their experience.
FIFA Master - International Master in Management, Law and Humanities of Sport, ranked Europe's No.1 course a record 13 times by SportBusiness.
Organised by CIES in cooperation with De Montfort University (UK), SDA Bocconi School of Management (Italy) and the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland).
"CIES, 30 years of impacting how sport is managed worldwide" & "FIFA Master, 25 years of Excellence in Sport Business Education"
