Moguls to management consulting: An Olympic athlete’s pivot to KPMG

Speaking to Accounting Times, former Olympic athlete Britt Cox shared her reflections on representing Australia at the top level of mogul skiing, and the lessons learned from her Olympic career that still shape her mindset and work ethic at KPMG.

Growing up in Victorian mountain country near Falls Creek, Britt recalled being on skis pretty much as soon as she could walk. Spending her days chasing her older brother around the mountains, she said it felt like a “natural progression” to compete in winter sports as a kid.

After watching Australia win gold at the Winter Olympics (Salt Lake City in 2002), she knew she wanted to chase big dreams herself.

“Our first women's gold medal was Alisa Camplin in aerial skiing. And I remember watching Alisa and just being like, wow, she's amazing. And instantly, I was inspired by her. She became a bit of a role model to me,” Cox recalled.

“Watching that, I was like, not only is she awesome at her sport, but she's also just this really happy, bubbly person. I was able to see, okay, a woman from Australia is capable of being at the absolute top in freestyle skiing. And it just showed me what was possible.

“From then on, I knew I wanted to chase that dream myself, and I wanted to be the best in the world at something. I didn't know what sport at the time. I just knew that that's what I wanted to do.”

Fast forward to 2016–17, Cox had a breakout season, winning seven World Cup victories. In 2017, she became Australia’s first female mogul skiing world champion at the International Ski Federation World Ski Championships, and won the overall Freestyle Skiing Crystal Globe.

“It was something I'd worked towards for so long through a number of years with various support members around me, and then finally I was able to put down the package that got me that gold medal. So that was definitely a highlight and something that I will cherish and remember forever,” she recalled.

She represented Australia in the Olympics four times as a professional athlete; at Vancouver in 2010, Sochi in 2014, Pyeongchang in 2018 and Beijing in 2022.

Reflecting on her pivot into management consulting, Cox recalled that she never would have predicted the move when she completed her athletic career in 2022.
With a degree in communications, she first took the plunge into sports reporting, working as a digital producer for the Commonwealth Games and in broadcast production for the Big Bash and Test cricket.

Soon, however, Cox realised her true passion lay with Olympic winter sports, which only came around once every four years. Recognising her love for variety, a university co-ordinator nudged her in the direction of consulting.

“I love variety. My sport involved a lot of variety. So she said, why don't you try consulting? So that gave me a nudge in that direction,” she recalled.

“Once I started [consulting], it kind of opened up my eyes to this whole other world where I was able to get exposure to lots of different industries, lots of clients, lots of different types of consulting, and was able to learn from some of the best in their field.”

After launching her management consulting career at KPMG, Cox realised her new role held more similarities than expected with her athletic career. Big goals, teamwork, tight schedules and unexpected challenges were themes in both seasons.

“There's probably more similarities than I was expecting,” she reflected.

At KPMG, being surrounded by experts reminded her of her time training for the Olympics, working with technical coaches, strength trainers, dietitians, doctors and physios.

“You've got this amazing pool of people that are excellent at what they do. And I think that's similar to being in the high performance sports space where you have so many different resources and people that you can speak to and experts in their field to learn from,” she said.

“And learning is a really key value of mine. So it definitely felt like the right fit for me once I started.”

The key difference, she said, was the deliverable. Instead of years of training building up to a nail-biting 30-second performance, she now worked with a team to produce a variety of transformational reports and projects for clients.

“The performance is no longer me mogul skiing. It's a report or a deliverable that we're trying to produce. And everyone on my team that's working on that particular piece has a different role to play,” she said.

“And they're either experts in their field or they have a part to play in delivering that piece of work. And everyone needs to work together and communicate to do that and to produce the best possible piece.”

Despite falling into consulting somewhat unexpectedly, Cox said she loved the variety and teamwork aspects of it, and was enjoying the process of learning new skills after having spent so many years fine-tuning at the peak of professional sports.

“When you retire from a sport and then you transition to another career, you go from being at the top of your field in something; when you're learning and growing, those improvements are so miniscule; to all of a sudden, going back to being a beginner at something. The growth and the change is exponential,” she said.

“So I've really enjoyed that, going back to being a beginner at something again and having those huge leaps and bounds in terms of growth and learning.”

Alongside her work at KPMG, Cox continues to give back to the Olympic community and currently serves as a non-executive director for the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia.

“This is a way that I feel like I can give back to the sport that gave me so much throughout my career,” she said.

Cox will also work as a broadcaster at this year’s Winter Olympics, kicking off on 6 February in Milano Cortina, Italy.

Leveraging her previous broadcast experience, she’s set to do some mixed zone reporting and previews for different sports in freestyle skiing and snowboarding, as well as providing specialist commentary on mogul skiing athletes.

“I'm looking forward to being able to bring those scenes back to Aussies back home and hopefully give them some excitement to watch right off the back of the Australian Open,” she said.

“Also the Aussie team, this is an incredibly strong team going into these Games, not just in terms of our medal chances, but also the depth of talent that we have, but also across a wide breadth of sports.”

Reflecting on her career journey and advice she would give her younger self, Cox said that the best way to learn was through experience.

“As much as there have been challenges and different times when I would have loved to have had someone provide guidance to me, I'm also a big believer that there's a lot that you need to learn yourself through experience,” she recalled.

“I think that's something I've also noticed when I started working as a consultant, there's only so much that you can be told and so many books that you can read and things in terms of how to upskill yourself. But actually learning through experience is the best way.”

She added that she would tell her younger self to be present and enjoy the experience as it unfolded.

“Not everyone gets to chase their dreams as a skier around the world. So I’m grateful for those experiences and definitely don't take that for granted. So I think embracing the season that you're in is probably the advice that I would give to myself.”