In the world of professional football (or “soccer”, for my fellow North Americans), Maurizio Sarri is an enigma. The chain-smoking, sharp-tongued Neapolitan has managed some of the most famous teams in the world, including Juventus and Chelsea. He led the latter to a Europa League title, and was named the Serie A Coach of the Year in 2017. Yet despite these sterling accolades, he never played football professionally.
This lack of “first team” experience is exceedingly rare at the highest level of the sport. While exceptional players don’t always blossom into exceptional coaches (in fact data indicates the opposite to generally be true), some prior professional playing time is nearly universal. Take Europe’s highest ranked league, the English Premiership, for example: only 2 of 20 teams employ a manager with no prior professional playing experience. Similarly, every winner of the FIFA Coach of the Year award for the past decade had previously laced up their own boots.
Given a football manager’s role in shaping tactics, team structure, and in-game decisions, this makes sense. The aim isn’t just scoring goals, but also creating a repeatable strategy to sustain success. If they’ve never stepped onto a pitch themselves, aspiring coaches typically lack the skills, knowledge, and context to surmount these challenges. While outsiders and mavericks can help generate innovative approaches, an overabundance of them leaves football clubs without critical first-hand experience and perspective.
In the albeit very different world of Registered Apprenticeship, the challenges and goals (no pun intended) leaders face are shockingly similar. Crafting policies that enhance both job quality and employer ROI is also a deeply complex task. As in a football team, our workforce ecosystem requires clarity and consistency in order to foster understanding and buy in from all stakeholders. Additionally, the apprenticeship system has to be flexible and adaptable to meet the evolving needs of many industries & occupations. Every short-term gain — on the field or in the workplace — should drive the goals of long-term success, from winning titles to advancing apprenticeship agencies.
Yet unlike in football, Registered Apprenticeship policy is seldom led by former practitioners. Our league — if you’ll allow me the extended metaphor — is full of Maurizio Sarris, undoubtedly accomplished but altogether bereft of lived experience. Many of our leading workforce organizations and think tanks are headed by individuals who have never participated in a Registered Apprenticeship program directly. Former President Joe Biden’s Advisory Committee for Apprenticeship represented a wide array of stakeholders, but only a handful were ever in training to become a journeyworker.
This is not to say that formal education and professional experience in public policy or government affairs are irrelevant. This background provides our workforce system with valuable theoretical knowledge and statecraft know-how. However, we need to recognize that former apprentices possess the most direct understanding of apprenticeship. If we truly value experiential learning, then surely an apprentice’s experiences are the most applicable to understanding what works, or doesn’t, in apprenticeship programs.
One phenomenal example of “apprentices leading apprenticeship” is the work of Kara Gooch, a former Business Integration Analyst Apprentice turned Workforce Management Consultant. As she approached her apprenticeship program graduation, Gooch realized that while she experienced amazing and well-supported journey, others did not. This led her to offer coaching and upskilling workshops to others, first as an apprentice, and then in a formal capacity as her sponsoring company’s Talent Strategy & Experience Lead.
Gooch recognizes how her time as an apprentice informs the workforce solutions she now designs for companies & universities. “Apprentices see gaps that others can’t,” she says, “These lived experience consultants can bring additional insights to the conversation.” Even high quality programs that gather and analyze participant data don’t necessarily illuminate the whole picture. Apprentices themselves can lend anecdotal evidence and qualitative information on variables that impact retention, such as supportive mentorship and effective training. As Gooch notes, “Data alone can’t provide that.”
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Apprentices see gaps that others can't. These lived experience consultants can bring additional insights to the conversation.
Why, then, are so few apprentices leading apprenticeship policy? A perceived lack of credibility could be at work, posit Iyioluwa Adesan, founder of the apprenticeship-focused tech company Apprentis. Adesan completed his Degree Apprenticeship with NatWest in 2024, receiving both valuable work experience and a Bachelor’s Degree in Digital Technology & Solutions from BPP University across the five-year program. With a newfound passion for product development, he crafted Apprentis as a way to fill knowledge and talent gaps in the apprenticeship sector. The platform provides job seekers with the information and support needed to find, start, and complete apprenticeship programs that fit their interests. Since opening their waitlist in February 2025, more than 2,000 people have signed up and 167 — nearly a tenth of all enrollees — have started apprenticeship programs in just over half a year.
Adesan, however, continues to see that former apprentices are viewed with skepticism in the policy space. He points to a set of stigmas, including age, prior professional experience, and educational background, that impede products like Apprentis from reaching a larger audience. Despite this, former apprentices continue to use their unique perspective to solve major workforce issues. For Adesan, taking a solutions-focused approach is helping him influence and impact apprenticeship policy in ways he never thought possible. “We have the answers to [these workforce] problems,” he emphasizes, “Now that we have a viable product to offer, people want to hear what we have to say.”
Fortunately, some former apprentices are finding their way into leadership positions, helping elevate the very programs that shaped them. David Polk, Director of Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development, runs the state’s Bureau of Apprenticeship Standards which “creates, implements and enforces policy regarding all things apprenticeship”. Polk comes from a family of tradesmen on his paternal side. He has memories of being babysat in the plumbing shop of his grandfather's business. He enrolled in Milwaukee Trade and Technical High School’s plumbing program and later started his apprenticeship at Plumbers' Local 75 in Milwaukee. After receiving his journeyman's license in 2001, he worked in the field for five more years before transitioning to a role with the City of Milwaukee as a plumbing inspector. He continued to progress, gaining his Bachelor’s Degree in 2011, working as an Associate Dean at Milwaukee Area Technical College, and ultimately joining the Department of Workforce Development in 2022.
Polk views his time as an apprentice as vitally important to his current leadership role, particularly in supporting apprentices themselves. “As an apprenticeship participant, I understand the level of work and commitment that one must have to complete the program.” Although he completed his training 20 years ago, Polk maintains a clear understanding of the obstacles many apprentices face. This, he argues, helps ensure “we attain a system that best protects the interest and experience of the apprentice.”
Employers, too, stand to benefit from Polk’s time as an apprentice. “When we acquire funds to support apprenticeship, my experience allows me to effectively structure supports for [both] sponsors and apprentices to assure an investment toward completing apprenticeships.” The very fact that Polk is in an influential position demonstrates the value of apprenticeship to all audiences. “It is valuable…for apprentices to be a lifetime learner, and I am living proof of that,” he emphasizes, “When talking with sponsors, there is evidence that an apprentice can continue learning and [will become] an investment that pays off for the company.”
Knowing the value they can provide, Polk hopes to see more former apprentices included in policy discussions. “There's a tendency to undervalue the deep insight of apprentices and not give them a seat at the table,” he says, “But their experience and knowledge from work on the job can't be imitated.”
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There's a tendency to undervalue the deep insight of apprentices and not give them a seat at the table. But their experience and knowledge from work on the job can't be imitated.
Incorporating the experiences of former apprentices to help shape the apprenticeship system would reap major benefits. With perspectives grounded in real-world experience, our programmatic approaches could be molded to better support the reality of technical instruction and on-the-job training. An increase in apprenticeship representation would also shift public opinion, helping demonstrate the value of work-based learning to new audiences. We would see more apprentices represented in corporate leadership — just as is the case outside of the US — which in turn would increase employer uptake for apprenticeship.
Perhaps most importantly of all, truly integrating the perspective of former apprentices would help us shift the perception of apprenticeship from an anti-poverty solution to an innovative economic strategy. As Rachel Lipson notes in her white paper, “America’s Missing Productivity Strategy: An R&D Approach to Workforce Development”, federally-funded workforce programs like apprenticeship have been pigeon holed as charitable pursuits rather than drivers of productivity.
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Perhaps most importantly of all, truly integrating the perspective of former apprentices would help us shift the perception of apprenticeship from an anti-poverty solution to an innovative economic strategy.
Treating human capital like research and development…would prioritize critical sectors with good-paying jobs that do not require a four-year degree and that are essential to deploying new technologies. Applying an R&D lens would also help close the “valley of death” between promising pilots and scaled solutions, while striking a better balance between experimentation and evidence.
Long-term studies and troves of data prove that apprenticeship does indeed spur innovation and corporate profit. But when we exclude former apprentices from policy conversations, we feed into the perception that apprenticeship is primarily an anti-poverty solution. We not only ignore their expertise and well-informed solutions, but also dismiss their experiences as being simply the result of a welfare program or charitable benefit. If we fail to elevate the opinions, expertise, and solutions of former apprentices, we resign ourselves to being led by those who have never done the work firsthand.