Katarina BITOVE’06 was curious. She’d noticed that, in his action-packed Instagram photos and videos, Canadian bobsledder Kenny M’Pindou never spoke. Welcoming M’Pindou as a client to her sports marketing company,  xoxo sports, Kat discovered why: he was self-conscious about a speech impediment.

Bitove encouraged the Canadian National Bobsleigh Team member to share, not hide, his speech challenges. She said that, going public, M’Pindou could be a role model and an ambassador. He’d inspire other athletes to be confident despite inhibitions about speech or any other difficulty they might have.

With Kat’s coaching and guidance, Kenny has not only gained corporate sponsorships but become a popular speaker at schools. With teammate Cesar De Guzman, M’Pindou started an Instagram series, To Feed A Bobsledder, where they try out restaurants. Five-star review criteria: large, high-carbohydrate meals that fuel athletic performance. 

Speaking of food, it was at the family dinner table that Bitove acquired her passion for sports. “I can’t catch a ball, can’t swing a bat,” she confesses, laughing. “And I definitely have limits when it comes to hand-eye coordination. But listening to my family talk about sports, I knew you didn’t have to be on the field to love them.”

Her dad was in the restaurant business, including a 27-year partnership with Wayne Gretzky in the hockey legend’s eponymous Toronto sports bar. “What I loved about those dinner conversations was the unifying experience, the collective emotion, about sports,” Bitove recalls. “Everyone knows where they were when Sidney Crosby scored the winning goal in the 2010 Winter Olympics. For me, family conversations were always that exciting, the sense of living and dying for a team.”

Like many university students, Bitove wasn’t sure about a career. But, along with sports, she had another passion. Encouraged by Branksome teachers, she shed her fear of public speaking—and won Branksome’s 2002 School Enthusiasm award.

Working with the Canadian Olympic Committee, she realized what a life-changer even $5,000 could be for early-career athletes. Being able to pay rent and afford physiotherapy was often just beyond what Olympic and Paralympic athletes, especially women, could afford.

Her idea: Start a company to bring services enjoyed by professional athletes to all athletes. She got in touch with quarterback Tom Brady’s manager, Ben Rawitz, for advice. “We talked, and Ben was really supportive. He said how refreshing my message was—he was used to hate messages flooding his inbox!”

In 2018, Bitove launched xoxo sports. “Since then, xoxo has evolved, becoming à la carte,” she reports. “I book sessions on demand and work with athletes all over the world to promote them, build their brand and secure sponsorships.”

It’s not just up-and-coming athletes that Bitove is stoked about encouraging. She’d love to see more girls in sports. High-school female athletes have more positive body images than female non-athletes, she says. Also, 85 per cent of women at the executive level in their careers attribute their success to the skills they developed in sports.

The stereotype about boys being natural athletes persists. But she’s determined—and, as M’Pindou notes on the xoxo website, Bitove makes transformations happen.