Board Member Profile: Frank McKinnon
Commercial Director at VALD
Frank has over twenty-two years of experience working to help technology companies grow, in roles that ranged from developer to the current role of Commercial Director with VALD. VALD is a fitness company that supplies innovative human-measurement technology to over a thousand of the world’s most elite sporting teams, universities and defense departments.
We talked with Frank to learn more about his perspective on the Tactical Athlete. Here is what he had to say:
(TA-LB): The themes of the Tactical Athlete Leadership Board are Readiness, Resilience, and Recovery. From your perspective, why are these themes important, and what about them resonates with your experience in the human performance industry?
(Frank): My background has included twelve years managing projects so I understand the importance of planning and preparation. If done well, it can help guide to a successful outcome and help to prepare for risks that could be encountered. Also, with over ten years in the sports tech space, I understand the importance of measuring to guide decisions with respect to load and recovery.
(TA-LB): Looking to the future, what technological innovation do you think will have the most significant impact on tactical athletes?
(Frank): Continued progress in objective measurement with interpretation and insight based on research that can be scaled.
(TA-LB): The spirit of the TALB is to bring a diverse set of perspectives to the table aligned toward a singular purpose: to sustain the tactical athlete of today and prepare for the tactical athlete of tomorrow. Why is it essential for the broader human performance industry to work together towards this end?
(Frank): Human beings are both complex and unique and collaboration as well as healthy competition will progress our industry much faster in providing meaningful advancements that are democratized for all humans - tactical athletes as well as the general public.
(TA-LB): What is the greatest challenge to innovation in the human performance sector?
(Frank): Bureaucracy [and] red tape.