Professional Athlete Alvina Chen Poised to Redefine Sporting Sector

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.

The 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 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 other metrics. This will serve as a pivotal training tool for athletes hoping to analyse their performance and identify their next areas of training.

Such a forward-thinking product is certain to totally transform athletics on a global scale and has been made possible by Alvina’s extensive experience in the field and deep understanding of its various complexities. In fact, the CEO continually leverages her background as a professional athlete to influence her leadership style and sustained success, believing in mastering the fundamentals, building strong systems and processes, and trusting the journey.

“I lead my team by fostering a culture centred on execution, adaptability, and growth, while fuelling passion for our vision,” Alvina explains. “I encourage collaboration, idea sharing, and accountability, ensuring that every team member contributes meaningfully. My leadership style is also highly strategic, with a strong focus on the long-term vision and the future we are building together. Just like in sports, the key to long-term success is trusting the process, improving every day, and staying focused on the bigger goal.”

This has proven to be an effective approach for Alvina, who has led Feldspar to great heights over the last year through her determination to succeed. Under Alvina’s expert guidance, Feldspar is pioneering groundbreaking technology that has never before been developed, setting new records and standards throughout the industry with the world’s fastest track and sensor-enabled smart flooring. The company has been able to achieve so much in so little time for Alvina’s ability to lead innovation, challenge the status quo, and push the limits of what is possible to bring bold ideas to life and drive advancements that redefine the sports industry.

Of course, this inspirational journey has not been without its challenges and Alvina tells us that one of the biggest challenges she has faced in her role has been the constant need to make high-impact decisions while managing multiple priorities. With a growing team and expanding responsibilities, many individuals require her time and attention, with each emphasising the urgency of their needs more than the last. To overcome this, Alvina has learned to establish clear priorities and structured decision-making processes to ensure that operations remain streamlined and effective.

“Also,” she adds, “since we are pioneering something truly groundbreaking, it can sometimes take time for others to fully understand what we are building. Communicating our vision clearly and consistently has been the key to bridging this gap and aligning everyone towards out long-term goals.”

Whilst pioneering the industry may not be the easiest feat, it is certainly rewarding. This mission has allowed Alvina to establish herself as a leader in groundbreaking innovation throughout the sports industry and beyond. Furthermore, embarking on this journey has expanded Alvina’s role, allowing her to be more deeply involved in technology development, industry partnerships, discussions with various sports federations and government bodies, and market expansion. She feels that her ability to navigate uncertainty has been strengthened, enabling her to make important and bold decisions to drive a vision that enhances performance and innovation.

Having been awarded the prestigious title of Sports Flooring CEO of the Year 2024 – UK in the CEO of the Year Awards 2024, we ask Alvina if she has any advice to share with budding CEOs who hope to achieve similar levels of success. “For aspiring CEOs, my advice is to embrace uncertainty with confidence and adaptability,” she responds. “The path to success is rarely linear, and being comfortable with ambiguity is what sets great leaders apart.

“Build a strong foundation by mastering the fundamentals, but don’t be afraid to challenge conventional thinking and push boundaries. Surround yourself with great people – your team is everything. And most importantly, embrace the journey. Focus on making incremental progress every day. The quality of your input defines the quality of your output.”

From a young age, Alvina has been dedicated to athletics, allowing her passion to shape her future into one of prosperity and great innovation. Rather than feeling deterred by her MG diagnosis, Alvina decided to turn her obstacles into opportunities and leverage her deep knowledge of the sporting sector to transform the industry for the better. Following a year of awe-inspiring accomplishment for Alvina and Feldspar, we ask the CEO what she believes the future has in store.

“My focus is on scaling our impact and continuously developing our smart flooring high-performance technology,” Alvina tells us. “I plan to strengthen strategic partnerships with sports clubs and government federations while refining our go-to-market strategy to benefit the entire sports ecosystem – from fans, broadcasters, and the media to athletes and coaches. We believe that this will not only drive technological advancements in athletics but also revolutionise the entire world of sports and expand into industries beyond.”

Contact Details

Contact: Alvina Chen

Company: Feldspar

Web Address: www.feldsparsport.com