CEO MONTHLY / 2024 CEO of the Year Awards 16 CEO MONTHLY / MARCH 2025 12 Professional Athlete Alvina Chen Poised to Redefine Sporting Sector he running track is an iconic setting that has been long synonymous with athletic events. That being said, while the rest of the sports world has advanced significantly through emerging technologies and scientific knowledge, the modern synthetic running track is an aspect that has been largely unchanged since their first introduction in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. Then, these tracks revolutionised the sport and provided runners with a more consistent and durable surface in comparison to the cinder tracks used before. In the decades that have followed, the materials and construction techniques have improved to ensure better performance and safety, but the fundamental concept of synthetic running tracks has remained the same. To the keen observer, this seemingly limited field of athletics actually highlights a significant window of opportunity for the innovative; the world of synthetic running tracks is brimming with unbridled potential. With advancing digitalisation, improving performances, and an increasing understanding of wellness, the industry has never been in a better position to transform the field and push athletics towards a new era. Enter Alvina Chen – a creative visionary leveraging her expertise to address this challenge head on. A professional track and field athlete, Alvina fell in love Jan25019 Every element matters in the competitive world of athletics, right down to the flooring. While there have been numerous advancements in footwear, clothing, and accessories to enhance athletic performance, the true potential of flooring remains unrealised. Feldspar is an innovative company revolutionising athletics with cutting-edge flooring and sensor technology to develop the world’s first integrated smart flooring system. The company is helmed by Founder and CEO Alvina Chen, an industry visionary who has been recognised for her ingenuity in the CEO of the Year Awards 2024. We speak to Alvina below to learn more about the CEO’s journey to success. T with the sport when she was just 12 years old and has been melding her love for her athletics with her entrepreneurial spirit ever since. She spent a decade competing around the world as a professional athlete, often working alongside world-class coaches, athletes, and the most cutting-edge technologies available. Throughout this experience, Alvina continually wondered how she could help to create a better pathway for professional athletes and digitise the sport to enhance live fan engagement. Alvina’s athletics career had progressed significantly, but this success was prematurely halted in 2020 with an unexpected diagnosis of myasthenia gravis, or MG. This chronic autoimmune disease causes extreme muscle weakness and impacted Alvina’s daily life for several years. Following three years of dedicated recovery, Alvina decided to reignite her passion once again and re-enter professional athletics. This time, she would explore more ways to train efficiently and reduce fatigue. Being more conscious of her health, Alvina quickly spotted a limitation to the field; while running shoes and training methodologies had certainly improved over the years to allow athletes to run faster and further, the track surface itself had not seen similar evolution. As she unravelled this thought, it became clear to Alvina that there was an unrealised potential in the industry to redefine athletics by reinventing the track, enabling faster speeds and mitigating fatigue to create a better experience for athletes and fans alike. As a result, Alvina founded Feldspar in 2024 and has since worked tirelessly in her mission of revolutionising the global athletics industry through the integration of advanced flooring techniques. The pioneering product combines advanced technology built into the floor, measuring footsteps as runners travel the track. This is combined with camera methods to capture data on stride, speed, and various
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