First he did it on a football pitch, progressing through Tottenham Hotspur's academy to play in the Premier League and eventually spending almost 20 years in professional football. Then, after retiring, he built a second career as a keynote speaker, travelling the world to talk to businesses about performance, psychology and leadership.
Now he believes the speaking industry needs the same sort of technological change that has transformed so many other parts of modern life.
McVeigh is the co-founder of Speakify, a new AI-powered speaker marketplace designed to match organisations with speakers based on what they actually need rather than simply who they already know.
"Because it feels like you're still booking a holiday in the 1990s," McVeigh tells Football Presse. "That really long, slow, manual, fragmented process of booking a holiday in the '90s is exactly how we still book a speaker today."
After 16 years working in the speaking industry, McVeigh became convinced that technology could change the process.
The idea took shape after he returned to Manchester University last year to complete a six-month mini-MBA. His mentor, a former US technology CEO with four company exits behind him, delivered some blunt advice.
"Pretty much within five minutes of the mentoring session starting, he said, 'Paul, you have no technology in any of your businesses. You're never going to scale it. You're never going to sell it for any multiple.'"
McVeigh admits it was harsh, but says the criticism forced him to look at his own industry differently.
The following morning, before going for a run, the former professional footballer began thinking about the possibilities.
"There's no Airbnb, Booking.com-style platform that allows a big client like the Microsofts, Googles, Rolls-Royces, KPMG, all the clients that have booked me over the last 20 years, book a speaker like me or any other speaker who does this around the world."
Speakify is now live, with McVeigh describing the first few weeks as "the steepest and biggest learning curve of my life." The company says its platform is designed to connect organisations directly with speakers, while also bringing bureaus, agencies, coaches, managers and emerging voices into the same marketplace.
The technology is designed to move beyond conventional keyword searches towards what McVeigh describes as intent-based matching. A client can explain the outcome they want from an event, the audience, budget and characteristics they are looking for, and the platform searches its speaker network accordingly.
The company's AI is also designed to learn from the process itself, using information from briefs submitted, speakers booked, reviews completed and event outcomes to continually improve recommendations, match quality, pricing information and performance insights.
For football, the possibilities are obvious.
A company preparing an event around the World Cup might want a former Premier League and international player who understands elite performance, has a background in psychology, has written books and has extensive speaking experience.
"Instantly someone with my profile should have been pulled up in front of them because I tick all of the boxes they're looking for," McVeigh says.
The client can then see the speaker's fees, availability, videos, TED Talk, social profiles and previous work before making an offer.
For McVeigh, the football connection also extends to the principle behind the platform.
During his playing career, he saw how clubs increasingly built detailed dossiers on players, using data and analysis before leaving the final judgement to the manager or coach. Speakify applies a similar idea to speakers, but with the intention of making the process accessible to people outside the established networks.
That matters particularly in football, where thousands of former players and coaches possess experiences that could be valuable to businesses but have never had access to the speaking market.
McVeigh knows that problem personally.
"When I started as a speaker, I couldn't get on any speaker bureau rosters," he says. "If I can't get on and I've got 20 years in professional football, what chance is some kid in Copenhagen or some girl in Bulgaria or some kid growing up in Alabama?"
Today McVeigh is represented by speaker bureaus around the world and says Speakify is not designed to replace them. Instead, agents and bureaus can use the platform to find speakers when a brief falls outside their existing networks.
The company was co-founded by McVeigh and Leadership Club, with Rhianne McVeigh as managing director. Its stated ambition is to make the speaking industry more open and accessible, including by giving organisations access to more women, people of colour and other diverse voices.
Speakify already features former footballers including Michael Owen, Sol Campbell, Teddy Sheringham and Andy Cole, while McVeigh says the company is working with agents internationally to bring more football figures onto the platform.
For him, this is not simply another business venture.
"The football was my first act. 16 years of speaking is my second act. And this is definitely my third and final act."
McVeigh describes Speakify as a legacy project: an attempt to change an industry he believes has remained unnecessarily closed for too long.
"We want to reduce the barriers of entry to zero to being a speaker," he says. "And actually we're making it into a meritocracy because we want it to be performance-based, that you get rewarded for being a good speaker."
For more about Speakify visit: wearespeakify.com