Executive Athletes: Work Hard, Play Even Harder

Angelo Rossetti (right) with tennis player James Blake.

When there's a will, there's a way when it comes to career and sports

Business New Haven
12/25/2006

by Melissa Nicefaro

It takes drive, determination and passion to become and stay a successful executive. It takes focus and an ideal combination of smarts and leadership. Some throw all they've got into a career, but some have a bit left over to devote to play. And then there are some who leave the executive life to follow their dreams. The Net Worker For Angelo Rossetti, the passion for the sport won out over executive life. He still keeps his feet in business as a marketing coach and consultant, but most days you can find him teaching tennis on the courts of Milford Indoor Tennis. In the mid-1990s, Rossetti was running an Internet marketing company called NetMarketing with his twin brother. The business lasted for six years and grew to 20 employees before the dot.com crash. Just before September 11, 2001 the Rossettis were preparing to sell the company, but instead, the deal and the company fizzled. So Rossetti launched another company, a networking firm known as Contact Advocate. He ran that business successfully for three years, but when he learned he was going to be a father, he made a dramatic lifestyle change. "I needed to do something in the afternoons while my wife teaches math in Milford," Rossetti explains. "Being an entrepreneur gave me the guts to make the lifestyle change. Most people make a career shift, but I ended my career." Rossetti sold his Contact Advocate shares back to his partner and in August of this year transitioned himself out of the business entirely. "It was scary and my wife was a bit curious about expenses with the new baby coming, but I knew I was doing the right thing," says the 37-year-old. "Some people multi-task, but I mega-task." And "mega" is a pretty good description of Rossetti's prowess on the court as well. He and his brother Ettore are the No. 3 doubles team in the New England's Men's Open Division. The Rossetti brothers started playing tennis together when they were three years old on a platform built by their grandfather. Rossetti also honors the sport he loves: Last year he earned the U.S. Tennis Association's Adult Male Sportsmanship Award for New England. "Tennis is very competitive and in amateur tennis, unlike professional tennis, you have to call your own lines. It behooves you to cheat and [cheating] does go on, so you have to have a balance of competitiveness and integrity. "Playing fair is the most important thing, not necessarily winning," Rossetti adds. "The idea is if you can play with integrity and win, then you've got it. "There are over 4,000 male tennis players in New England, and winning that award for competing fairly among my peers means more than anything else." Business and sports have a great many similarities even beyond competition, according to many who are involved in both. "If you are healthy and perform athletically, you can take that same focus into business," says Rossetti. "Many business executives have been accomplished in athletics. Make a lot of contacts and keep up with them, because you never know what's going to happen. "When I was in business, I kept up with tennis," he adds. "Now that I'm in tennis mode, I still keep up with business." In 2007 he plans to start a corporate tennis league and inaugurate a series of "Tennis After Hours" events for business people to network on both sides of the net. For now, he's working six days a week teaching tennis.