From the Olympics to entrepreneurship, Emmy Award-winning grad is focused on what’s next

Romain Dompnier, BA 15, doesn’t tend to dwell on nostalgia when he reflects back to winning two Sports Emmy Awards. In fact, the video producer hasn’t even given the awards dedicated shelf space.

“I’ll be honest, I use one to hold my headphones,” he says with a laugh from his home in Vancouver.

It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate the Emmys — far from it. It’s just that Dompnier simply prefers to think ahead rather than look back.

Both Emmy wins, in 2022 and 2025, were for his work on The Podium podcast as part of a team supplying NBC with daily audio content during the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris and Tokyo. Each episode explored the stories behind the athletes, teams and events at the Games. Dompnier wrangled interviewees — often busy Olympians on their way to compete — and conducted the interviews and wrote narration for the hosts.

“In hindsight, it was really cool to work on the Olympics,” he says. “But during it all, I was going on two hours’ sleep every night,” he recalls.

Dompnier is now applying that passion for sports — particularly mountain biking — to a new career path. His company QuarterHP produces content that blends bike reviews with entertainment and travel.

“We just got started and already have a lot of established brands that have put their trust in us,” he says.

Lessons from Concordia

While developing stories for brands and writing scripts can be daunting tasks for a new business owner, Dompnier credits Concordia for preparing him for the pivot.

While studying journalism, Dompnier was took in everything he could learn. “In Journalism 101, we were told to talk to strangers, call people — not because it’s our task, but because it serves the story,” he says. “These days, I have no problem approaching people. It helped me during the Olympics and still does today.”

After graduating from Concordia, Dompnier worked in sales before finding his way back to journalism. He joined production studio Boombox Group, where he helped develop The Podium.

“To their credit, Boombox throws people into the deep end very early,” he says. “It allowed me to develop interesting projects in a wide range of sports.”

Those included a series featuring Red Bull TV athletes, a Michelob-sponsored ad for the Boston Marathon, F1 racing documentaries and interviewing some of the world’s top names in sports.

“I interviewed Michael Phelps, but in the end, he’s just a guy answering our questions,” Dompnier says. It’s a perspective consistent with his view of accolades as well — acknowledged, then set aside in favour of what comes next.