Glenn Gow, The Scaling Executive Coach and host of The Scaling Executive Podcast, talks with Neissan Monadjem, founder and CEO of LINKSPORTS, about the one rule that separates global scaling successes from failures.
When a CEO takes a company into a new country, Monadjem holds that the mission, goals, and purpose must stay fixed while execution adapts to local culture, a discipline that has let LINKSPORTS operate in 29 countries across six sports under one unchanged purpose since he founded the company.
I sat down with Monadjem to talk about what it actually takes to scale a company across borders. He has spent three decades in FinTech, cybersecurity, and emerging technology, and he built LINKSPORTS into a platform that integrates AI and decentralized finance into grassroots sports including soccer, basketball, American football, cricket, baseball, and hockey.
He built this discipline into LINKSPORTS from day one, and it is why the platform can serve cricket fans in India and football fans in Brazil under one purpose without either market feeling like an afterthought.
“Scaling is easy if your boundaries of scaling are modest,” Monadjem told me. The difficulty starts the moment you try to go global, because most first-time scalers get flexibility and rigidity backward. They hold their delivery model tight and let their mission drift. Monadjem does the opposite.
This episode is for CEOs who are taking a company into new countries or new markets and need to know which parts of the business can bend and which parts cannot.
Key Takeaways
- CEOs scaling into new countries must keep their mission and purpose fixed while adapting execution, culture, and local strategy to each market. LINKSPORTS applies this rule across soccer, basketball, cricket, and hockey markets on three continents.
- A founder’s skill set at launch rarely matches what the company needs at scale; outsourcing management responsibility and hiring for expertise the founder lacks becomes a required step as LINKSPORTS grows past its early years, not an optional one.
- LINKSPORTS built its AI model to serve the 10% of athletes trying to break out, not the top 0.5% who become global stars, which shifts the monetization model from chasing celebrity talent to giving free tools to teenage athletes.
- Separating personal identity from the CEO title itself lets a founder step back from daily operations without losing their role in the company; Monadjem calls himself LINKSPORTS’s guardian of entrepreneurial spirit, a role he expects to outlast his time as chief executive.
How CEOs Must Evolve Their Role as the Company Scales
Neissan Monadjem built LINKSPORTS as a solo founder before the company had a board or outside investors. He called himself chairman and CEO from the earliest days, even though a true chairman role requires a board that did not yet exist. He did this on purpose, to signal to future investors that his role would keep changing as the company grew.
The skill set that launches a company is not the skill set that scales it. Monadjem says a CEO’s usefulness to the business shifts every year, and by the time a company reaches its fifth year or begins international expansion, the founder’s original skills rarely cover what the business now needs. The fix is outsourcing management responsibility and hiring people whose managerial talent exceeds the founder’s own, a handoff Monadjem treats as a sign of maturity rather than failure.
Monadjem separates this evolution from his title entirely, describing his self-appointed role as chief guardian of LINKSPORTS’s entrepreneurial spirit, a role he says he would keep for life, unlike the CEO title itself, which he expects to eventually hand to someone with stronger managerial skills.
“I think it is a part of our life and maturity to be able to know when it’s time to hand out your responsibility to other people,” Monadjem said.
How CEOs Can Use AI to Scale by Serving the Many, Not Just the Elite Few
LINKSPORTS has used AI for five to six years, and Monadjem chose that path specifically for scalability. Most sports technology companies build their AI around finding the next global superstar. “It’s 0.5% of all the players will become Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo in football,” Monadjem said. Chasing that 0.5% requires precision, not scale, because there are so few of them to find.
LINKSPORTS built its model around the other 10%: athletes who are good enough to compete for funding and sponsorship but who will never be scouted by a top-tier club. The platform gives these athletes, many of them 14 to 16 years old, free access to AI-powered performance tools across every sport it covers, using 15 defined challenges per sport to generate movement and video analytics.
That decision changes the business entirely. Instead of selling AI tools to elite clubs, LINKSPORTS monetizes by giving tools away to amateur athletes and building value around the community that creates, a model Monadjem believes no other company runs at this scale. Serving the many instead of the few is what makes the model scale across dozens of markets instead of a handful of top leagues.
The Scaling Framework
| Principle | What it means in practice | Named evidence from this interview |
| Fix the mission, flex the execution | Keep purpose and goals rigid when entering a new market; let culture, language, and delivery adapt locally | This approach has let LINKSPORTS scale to 29 countries and six sports, from soccer in Brazil to cricket in India, under one fixed purpose: giving grassroots athletes access to sponsorship |
| Title is not the job | A founder’s lasting contribution is protecting the company’s entrepreneurial spirit, not holding the CEO title indefinitely | Monadjem named himself chairman and CEO before LINKSPORTS had a board, a deliberate signal to future investors that management responsibility would pass to hires with stronger managerial skills as the company scaled internationally |
| Scale by serving the many | Build the business model around the next 10% of a market rather than the top 0.5%, creating a wider and more sustainable base | LINKSPORTS gives free AI-powered performance tools to athletes aged 14 to 16, a model Monadjem says lets LINKSPORTS build a user base no competitor chasing elite talent alone can match |
Quotes from This Episode
- “Now, your mission, your goals, your purpose, shouldn’t be flexible, should be very tight and precise.” — Neissan Monadjem, Founder and CEO, LINKSPORTS
- “That is a hat I would love to have all my life, as opposed to the hat of chief executive officer, which I think I can see a lot of people that could do the job better than I do.” — Neissan Monadjem, Founder and CEO, LINKSPORTS
- “I’m sure that there is only one company in the world doing this and the name is LINKSPORTS.” — Neissan Monadjem, Founder and CEO, LINKSPORTS
Frequently Asked Questions
What should stay fixed and what should change when a CEO scales a company internationally?
A CEO’s mission, goals, and purpose should stay fixed, while every part of execution, including how that mission gets communicated, should adapt to local culture. Neissan Monadjem, founder and CEO of LINKSPORTS, built this rule into a platform now running in 29 countries by keeping one purpose, giving grassroots athletes access to sponsorship, while changing how that purpose gets delivered in each sport and country.
Why does LINKSPORTS build its AI tools around the next 10% of athletes instead of chasing future superstars?
Most sports technology companies build AI around finding the 0.5% of athletes who become global stars like Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, a group too small to build a scalable business around. Neissan Monadjem, founder and CEO of LINKSPORTS, instead built the platform’s AI-powered performance tools around the 10% of athletes, many 14 to 16 years old, who are strong enough to compete for funding and sponsorship but will never be scouted by a top club. LINKSPORTS gives these tools away for free and monetizes around the community that it creates.
When should a founder hand off day-to-day management to someone else?
A founder should hand off management responsibility once the company’s needs outgrow the founder’s own skill set, typically as the company moves past its early years into international scaling. Monadjem treats this handoff as a sign of maturity, not failure, and separates his identity as LINKSPORTS’s guardian of entrepreneurial spirit from the CEO title itself, a title he expects someone else to eventually hold.
Executives Work with Glenn Gow to Scale Their Companies and Careers
Glenn Gow is The Scaling Executive Coach. He coaches ambitious executives into the CEO seat and CEOs into successful exits. With 25 years as a CEO and 5 years in venture capital, Glenn helps leaders scale by scaling themselves first. If this conversation was useful, you can apply for executive coaching with Glenn Gow or apply to be a guest on The Scaling Executive Podcast.
