Olympic speed skater and Adobe talent manager Elli Ochowicz on the unique skills athletes bring to work

Olympic speed skater and Adobe talent manager Elli Ochowicz on the unique skills athletes bring to work

It was practically predestined that Elli Ochowicz would be an Olympian. Her mom was a three-time medalist in speed skating, winning gold, silver, and bronze at the 1976 Winter Olympic Games. Her dad was a two-time Olympic track cyclist and a two-time Olympic road cycling coach.

"It's all in the family - sports and the Olympics are in my blood," Ochowicz says with the practice of someone who's described her impressive pedigree before. "Early on, I felt the spirit of the Olympics in the walls of my home, and I always knew that was the path for me."

Indeed, Ochowicz's path led her to compete for the US Speed Skating Team at three Olympics, a remarkable achievement for any athlete. But after she retired from skating in 2014, she grappled with an identity shift and what to do next. Like other elite performers, she developed unique skills and traits through sports that helped her transition into and succeed in the corporate world.

The Olympics shape people in ways that go beyond the Games, and we've highlighted Adobe employees who prove that - a sprinter whose Olympic heartbreak forged poise, resilience, and business leadership - a photographer who brings perspective and creativity to Adobe partnerships - an ambitious, all-around athlete who jumps at every opportunity to crush a new challenge.

Athletes and their inspiring stories are celebrated during the Olympics. But what happens after their sports careers are over and they move into the business world? Ochowicz, now a senior manager in talent acquisition at Adobe, can speak to that. She shares her Olympic story and point of view on how athletes' extraordinary abilities and experiences enable them to be standout Adobe employees.

The first Olympics: "I felt so big in that moment"

Ochowicz grew up skating "on the frozen tundra" near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on an outdoor rink that was reconstructed in 1993 as the indoor Pettit National Ice Center. When she was six years old, Ochowicz started racing and, unsurprisingly, she was quite good at it.

She climbed quickly through the youth speed skating ranks, winning several medals at the Junior World Championships. When she was 15, Ochowicz was invited to join the national training program in Salt Lake City to prepare for the 2002 Olympics. It was a big decision for someone so young to move away from home, but her family - well aware of the sacrifice and realities of elite athletics - was naturally supportive. "So, I took the leap to pursue my Olympic dream."

Ochowicz spent the next few years training with the US Speed Skating team and, at the age of 18, was selected to represent her country at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. While she would go on to compete in two more Winter Games in 2006 and 2010, Ochowicz says 2002 was unforgettable. Not only was it her first Olympics, it was on home ice.

"It's really incredible," she says. "Undoubtedly, my most memorable experience is walking into the Opening Ceremony beside my teammates, in front of my friends and family, behind our country's flag, hearing the roar of our home crowd and the energy in the stadium. It's really the moment when it all sunk in that I'm an Olympian - no one can take this away from me.

"That moment is just unmatched. I cried. I reached as high as I could to the crowd to wave, and I truly felt like I was reaching for the stars. It was just something that I couldn't control, but I felt so big in that moment."

Despite her youth and the enormous pressure to perform on the world stage, Ochowicz mostly remembers feeling confident and excited to be there. "I didn't feel the nerves like I did in future Olympics," she says. "I think that's just because of where I was at that time in my career and knowing what my ultimate goal was: I wanted to be an Olympic gold medalist, but I knew that it was not my time for that. And so I was just there taking it all in, using that as a steppingstone and an experience to take on to future Olympics."

In 2002, Ochowicz finished 22nd of 31 skaters in the 500-meter sprint, her only event. When her mom called to tell Ochowicz how proud she was, they both teared up.

At the 2006 and 2010 Games, Ochowicz's expectations for herself had risen - and so had the pressure. "I wanted to be an Olympic gold medalist," she says. "That was my dream. I did not just want to be an Olympian - that almost felt inevitable, given my experience and my background. I wanted to have a spot on that podium."

Perhaps the most challenging thing about performing at the Olympics, and especially in a sport like speed skating, Ochowicz says, is that the most minuscule of margins make all the difference. In her main event, the 500-meter sprint, the difference between first place and 10th could be a few tenths of a second.

"Everything you're preparing for is to be perfect and to execute on that specific day," she says. "The pressure around that is significant."

At the 2006 Winter Olympics, Ochowicz finished in 23rd place in the 500 - less than three seconds behind the winner - after a pair of controversial false start penalties put her in an almost impossible position. At the 2010 Olympics, she finished in 17th place. Ochowicz also raced in the 1,000-meter event at both Games.

"I think I prepared as well as I could have, and I know I did everything I could to be the best that I could be," she says about processing the disappointment of missing her gold-medal goal. In 2014, after falling just short of making it to her fourth Olympics, Ochowicz retired from speed skating.

Finding a new identity outside of sports - and falling in love with a career at Adobe

At the 2002 Winter Olympics, Ochowicz was wide-eyed, happy just to be there. In 2006, she was angry atrefereeing decisions she felt were unfair. In 2010, she was disappointed with the result but satisfied with her effort.

In hindsight, she feels she took away something important from those incomparable experiences competing at the Games - even if silver linings aren't as gratifying as gold medals. She developed resilience, perspective, and perseverance, traits that would help her later in life - to say nothing of all the other valuable skills elite athletes acquire through sports, such as teamwork, leadership, competitiveness, and work ethic.

While all those things were useful, transitioning out of sports was not an easy or enjoyable experience initially. One of the biggest challenges for many athletes, Ochowicz says, is "going from 'I'm this' to 'I'm not this.'"

Ochowicz believed her background would help her stand out and was confident her skills could translate to business if she embraced them. But she also knew she needed to take time to find something she was excited about and felt a real connection to.

"There's so much passion that goes into sports. You have to love it if you want to dig deep and give it your all," Ochowicz says. "There has to be something special there, and that's what I was searching for in the work world.

"It took exploration, and it took time just to be OK with doing nothing for a little bit, which was very uncomfortable because when you're an athlete, it's go, go, go, you're on the move," she says. "But I think taking time to explore what that next step looked like was really healthy."

She considered jobs in sports, which felt comfortable. She considered sales, which she figured she'd be good at since she was competitive and tenacious. She thought hard about going into the tech industry.

After a year and a half, Ochowicz got her first real job outside of sports: It was a sales talent sourcing position at Adobe. The company liked that she was goal-oriented, relationship-driven, and good at working with teams. She liked the parallels between the sports world and the corporate world.

"I was able to reflect on the amount that I learned and gained and how, unknowingly, I was transferring a lot of those skills and experiences into my role at Adobe," Ochowicz says.

Ochowicz loved cold outreach, trying to sell prospective candidates on an opportunity, and the feeling of being nervous but well-prepared. She loved relationship building, connection, and collaboration. She loved bringing in junior employees and seeing them grow at Adobe. And she loved having objectives and targets to hit - "ironically," she says, "we call them golds."

The skills and experiences that transfer from sports to business

Research abounds demonstrating a connection between success in sports and success in business. In a 2022 study, nearly all surveyed athletes reported that psychological attributes like resilience, adapting to change, and self-discipline were vital to their success. The British Universities & Colleges Sport organization found that graduates who participated in sports at the university level earned around 18 percent more than their non-sporting peers. According to a global study from EY and espnW, 94 percent of women in C-suite roles played sports, including 52 percent in college.

As the Harvard Business Review said in an article drawing on sports science research to describe the corporate athlete: "If there is one quality that executives seek for themselves and their employees, it is sustained high performance in the face of ever-increasing pressure and rapid change."

Ochowicz knows all about that pursuit of high performance. "I loved training," she says. "I'm a competitor, but the most special moments for me were in getting through that workout. You feel like you don't have the strength or ability to overcome, and you're seeing how far you can push yourself because it's in the training where you really push your own limits, both physically and mentally."

Given her Olympic background and Adobe position, Ochowicz has a unique vantage point to see why and how athletes do well in the corporate world.

"It's kind of the tangibles versus the intangibles," she says. "Generally, athletes have work ethic, perseverance, resilience. They have strategies to adapt through changes, depending on their sport. They can be really great at teamwork and collaboration. It's a variety of skill sets that I think help set an athlete up for success in different functions.

"It doesn't matter if you competed at the high school, collegiate, professional, or Olympic level - you're still getting all the value and experiences through sports that you can transfer over into business."

Here are the traits Ochowicz says elite athletes bring to the table as employees:

1. Teamwork. Ochowicz says the number-one skill athletes bring to the workplace is teamwork. Even in speed skating, individuals train with a team to accomplish a larger goal. To perform well in sports and at work, people have to navigate difficult situations, collaborate with others, and solve problems together.

2. Competitive drive. Athletes are hypercompetitive, whether they play a team or individual sport. The drive to push themselves and win in sports translates into useful endeavor in professional life - striving to win a deal, defeat the competition, or earn that promotion.

3. Adaptability. Participating in sports teaches people how to react nimbly to changes - to be flexible in different situations, refocus when roadblocks show up, and respond constructively, all of which are critical in a dynamic corporate environment.

4. Resilience. Athletes encounter failure - injuries, obstacles, defeats - throughout their careers, and the practice of facing those challenges and overcoming that adversity helps them develop impressive resilience and perseverance.

5. Work ethic. Elite athletes train endlessly, enduring grueling physical workouts and repeating the same movements and actions to perfection. This kind of work ethic and discipline enables them to focus, grind, and relentlessly pursue success in business.

6. Goal-setting. Sports is all about setting - and often scoring - goals. Athletes learn the importance of clear, challenging goals and the continuous, incremental improvements required to achieve them. That translates into hitting KPIs, surpassing growth targets, and executing strategic planning at work.

7. Ability to handle pressure. Playing sports helps people develop the ability to stay calm and perform under pressure - whether giving an important presentation or trying to make a sale - and that results from being confident they're prepared.

"Handling pressure comes down to preparation and knowing you did everything you could," Ochowicz says. "I'm showing up my best because I did the work that it takes to show up in that way. I know I have strategies for dealing with nerves that I learned through sports and techniques that I can rely on when I'm going into a big meeting."

The culture, people, and values - "It's what brought me to Adobe"

Back in 2014, Ochowicz was a 15-year veteran of the US Speed Skating team trying to get to one more Winter Olympics. Even though she didn't make it - a teammate beat her by just seven-hundredths of a second - Ochowicz remembers that time fondly for what she learned about herself through the disappointment of the moment and the personal and professional self-discovery that followed.

"What I really loved about that was using my experiences and my strengths to help elevate and lead my more junior teammates," she says. "As much as that hurt, and it took a while to process it all, what I gained from stepping into a leadership role and helping others to achieve - it was such a rewarding experience."

Today, Ochowicz gets the same sort of feeling at Adobe.

"I really enjoy seeing others succeed and feeling like, in some way, I'm a part of that," she says. "In skating, I had to rely on my teammates to get to the highest level, and they relied on my skills similarly. What's special about our team here at Adobe is we're really collaborative, and that's an environment I thrive in. I love contributing my strengths, and I love learning from other people around me as we try to achieve something bigger than ourselves.

"Adobe has a special culture. It's created by its people and its values. It's what brought me to Adobe, and it's why I'm [still] here nine years later."

The 2024 Summer Olympics were "constantly on at our house," Ochowicz says. She and her husband, who also works at Adobe, watched their three young children to see which sports captured their attention. Ochowicz says she'd love for her kids to get into speed skating - and, while there's not as much ice where they live in California as there is in Wisconsin or Utah, they've probably got the genes and family history to make up for it.

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