As founder and president of Formula Strategy Group, Cyrus Zolghadri has developed a niche in sports marketing that connects companies and other clients with sporting events and platforms highlighting U.S. veterans and active military service members. Among the projects Formula has created or worked with are the Wounded Warrior Experience event and the Military Mentorship Program for the 2014 Sochi Olympics, which was a yearlong collaborative effort that brought together athletes and military representatives.
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It is so important for us to recognize and actively appreciate our 25 million veterans in the U.S. and our 2.6 million representatives of the U.S. armed forces for the many freedoms we enjoy every day. Our work is incredibly rewarding, and it’s been amazing to see some of these partnerships and programs we’ve been building for years fully realized.”
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Photo by: FORMULA STRATEGY GROUP
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On the driving force for the programs: The sacrifices [our service members] have gone through and the freedoms they provide us have just been awesome. For me personally, my parents were immigrants, so being one of 20 million second-generation Americans whose parents came to the U.S. to give their children a brighter future, it’s given me the opportunity to be very appreciative of the freedoms we have here.
On the success of the Military Mentorship Program: The Military Mentorship Program we put together for our U.S. Olympians, our U.S. Ski and Snowboard team, in Sochi was incredibly rewarding. It was rewarding for both the athletes and our veterans, where they were both really able to inspire and learn from each other. … We’ve got the best military, we’ve got the best athletes in the world — why not put them together and allow them to share and grow from those experiences?
On an ongoing pursuit: Finding an “internal champion” at a company who sees the picture that this is a great thing to do, to honor and appreciate our military and be able to see it from multiple standpoints outside of philanthropy, which can include hiring veterans. You know what great employees veterans make, [and it] is rewarding for their employees to be a part of it.
On specific Veterans Day initiatives: We do a lot of media buys for our clients and partners around Veterans Day and what they do to appreciate the military. The Wounded Warrior Experience, which broadcasts on Veterans Day, gives inspirational stories of recovery that our service members make and some of the challenges they face when they transition back to civilian life. That can help motivate and inspire our veterans and service members that might have some of the same challenges.
