MA in Sports Administration Faculty
Brice Clinton
Faculty Director
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Brice Clinton is the Director of Solutions Engineering for CSG, a global interactive media company. He is responsible for international business development, technical evangelism, and translating technical capabilities into tangible business outcomes. In addition, Clinton serves as the primary media liaison through writing and speaking. Since joining CSG International he has been responsible for client engagements across media, sports, and retail in North American, Europe, Asia, India, and Australia. Clinton received a bachelor of the arts in Organizational Communication from Purdue University, and a master’s degree in Sports Administration from Northwestern University.
Jim Andrews
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Jim Andrews is an acknowledged expert in the fields of sponsorship and sports marketing. He was instrumental in building pioneering sponsorship firm IEG into a global leader in data, information and consulting.
He has worked with organizations of many stripes to create strategic sponsorship programs focused on best practices in sponsorship assessment, selection, negotiation, contracting, valuation, activation and ROI measurement. His network of contacts across sports and sponsorship—from rightsholders and brands to agencies, data and technology suppliers and beyond—is unparalleled.
Jim is widely recognized for providing critical insights and education through trainings, appearances and publications. In addition to identifying key trends and delivering his unique perspective on the most important issues facing rightsholders and their commercial partners, he is known for identifying and developing strategies and concepts for securing, evaluating and optimizing partnerships now widely adopted by corporate, sports, entertainment and nonprofit marketers of all types and sizes.
A frequent media commentator, Jim has been a featured speaker at hundreds of sports, entertainment and marketing conferences around the world.
A New York native, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism from The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern.
Douglas Bakker
Adjunct Lecturer, Director of Graduate Programs
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Doug Bakker worked at DePaul University for over 13 years in various capacities. Most recently as an Associate Athletics Director, Bakker oversaw athletics compliance and worked with all of the sport programs to comply with NCAA, BIG EAST, DePaul and other state and federal requirements. Additionally, Bakker served as the sport administrator for the men's and women's cross country and track and field programs when they won their first conference title in DePaul history. He was the primary liaison for the athletics department with various other University departments, including admissions, financial aid, and housing and also assisted with DePaul's SAAC. Bakker served as the assistant tournament manager for the 2006 and 2012 NCAA women's basketball first and second rounds as well served in a similar role for the 2014 BIG EAST women's basketball championship. Bakker served on the NCAA Reasonable Standards Committee for compliance professionals with the committee's mission of shaping policy on the best practices to monitor, educate and document various NCAA compliance rules issues for Division I institutions. He holds a BA from University of Illinois and a JD from DePaul University Law School and is published in the DePaul Journal of Sports Law and Contemporary Problems, and has been a faculty member of the MSA program since 2009.
Adam Cook
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Adam Cook is an experienced program director and educator whose career has spanned a wide range of roles in sport, recreation, and fitness. At the Division 1 level, he has served as a strength and conditioning coach, Men's and Women's Volleyball coach, and developed multiple international service-learning programs. Cook has led sport and community programs in more than 20 countries across North America, Asia, Europe, and Africa. As part of his passion for growing global opportunities, Cook developed curriculum for cross-cultural work that has been used to train program participants in more than 40 different countries. This range of experience has given him a unique insight into the growing impact of sport on a global scale with first-hand experience at the highest levels of competition down to initiatives in the local community.
In addition, Cook is an adjunct faculty member at California Baptist University teaching a variety of courses in Exercise Science, Kinesiology, and Sport Psychology. Cook received his B.S. and M.S. in Kinesiology from California Baptist University.
David DeVries, APR
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David DeVries is a marketing manager and public relations professional with more than 25 years of experience. He is now a Sr. Communications Manager for HERE Technologies, the world’s leading global provider of maps, traffic and location data-enabling navigation, location-based services and mobile advertising. DeVries was national sports marketing public relations manager at Sprint, supporting the company’s NFL, NHL and venue sponsorships. He has been an adjunct faculty member at Northwestern University since 2010, teaching a variety of public relations courses. His paper, “Defining the characteristics of a lingering crisis: lessons from the National Zoo,” which examined the emergence of a new crisis communication category defined as the “lingering crisis,” was published by Public Relations Review. He holds a master’s degree in public relations and advertising from DePaul University.
Lauren Douglas
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Lauren Douglas is a Northwestern Wildcat through and through. After earning her undergraduate degree from the Medill School of Journalism while being a Division I student-athlete (basketball), she continued through the Masters of Sports Administration program; it was there where she took her first PR & Crisis Communication course and discovered her passion and talent for the industry. Now, Lauren is a public relations professional with experience with two of the largest brands in the sports industry. After graduating from the MSA program in 2017, Douglas immediately began as the Public Relations coordinator for the Los Angeles Dodgers where her responsibilities included media credentialing, press release writing, media guide and daily game note publication and athlete relations. She spent 3 years with the Dodgers which included two NLCS titles and two World Series appearances. In 2019, Lauren followed her passion for basketball where she began as the Broadcast Partnerships Coordinator for the Los Angeles Lakers. Her first season proved to be a whirlwind with the death of a basketball legend, shut down of the season and the Orlando Bubble, culminating with a 2019-2020 championship. She went on to work two more seasons with the Purple and Gold before deciding to make a change to work for a PR agency representing travel and consumer product clients. Lauren is currently the PR Director for the Los Angeles Sparks.
Cari Grieb
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Cari Grieb is a partner in the Banking and Financial Services Department of Chapman and Cutler LLP, where she represents lenders in large cap and middle market spaces in senior, first lien/second lien, subordinated and mezzanine financings, including asset acquisitions, leveraged buy-out transactions, and restructurings. Her transactions span a number of industries, including sports, health care, accounting, industrials, agriculture, food and consumer manufacturers and retailers, consulting and business services, education, technology, and insurance.
She has experience representing both professional teams and banks in stadium finance transactions and other sports law matters in Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, Minor League Baseball, the National Football League, and the National Premier Soccer League.
Cari contributes her expertise to advance diversity initiatives in the legal profession and among professional sports leagues. Since 2018, she has been an Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University’s Masters in Sports Administration Program, where racial and gender diversity has been an academic focus. Cari teaches “MSA 405: Legal and Ethical Issues in Sports Management”. In addition, since 2019, she has been a Lecturer in Law at Duke Law, where she teaches “Negotiating Domestic Violence Policies and Gender Inequality Reform in Professional Sports."
She is also an advisor to the National Football League Players Association on racial and gender diversity and has published and spoken widely on both topics topics.
Cari graduated as Valedictorian, with honors, from Cornell University where she earned a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations and magna cum laude from Duke University School of Law, where she earned her J.D.
Adam Grossman
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Adam Grossman is Vice President, Business Insights & Analytics for Excel Sports Management (ESM). ESM Insights & Analytics is an industry leading sponsorship technology and analytics practice that works with Fortune 500 companies, global media organizations, and major professional sports properties. He is formerly the CEO, Founder Block Six Analytics (B6A) which was acquired by ESM in September 2021. He co-authored The Sports Strategist: Developing Leaders For A High-Performance Industry. His work has been featured in Forbes, SportsBusiness Journal, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and SportTechie. He also teaches at Northwestern University’s Masters of Sports Administration program.
Ben Gutman
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Ben Gutman has been an educator, program director, coach and academic advisor throughout his whole career. Most recently, Ben served as the Assistant Director of Athletic Academic Advising at DePaul University, where he worked from 2014-2022. At DePaul, his main duties included advising the Men's Basketball and Women's Tennis teams as well as being the director of the tutoring program. Ben was also responsible for staffing and management of more than 40 student and part time employees in the AAA. His advising and tutoring work helped to ensure that all student-athletes at DePaul are able to maximize their student-athlete experience using resources provided by AAA, the university as a whole, and opportunities within the city of Chicago. Ben also worked directly with other tutoring programs on campus and he served on the DePaul Athletics Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee as the chair of the education subcommittee and DePaul's Student-Affairs Division Assessment Committee.
Prior to working at DePaul, Ben worked as a teacher and coach at Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, NV for nine years. He attended the United States Air Force Academy and the University of Puget Sound as a baseball student-athlete. He also obtained his Master's in Sports Administration at Northwestern University and his MBA in Finance and Sports Management from DePaul University.
Kristin Kane Herbison
Adjunct Lecturer, Senior Associate Athletic Director for Academic Services & Student Development
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Kristin Kane Herbison joined the MSA faculty in the spring of 2021. Kane Herbison has spent all of her career in college athletics and higher education. Most recently, Kane served as the Senior Associate Director of Athletics for Academic Services and Student Development at Northwestern from the spring of 2013 to the fall of 2021. In that role, she oversaw operations of the department's academic services and student development programs, managing a team of seven full-time staff members and an intern. The Academic Services and Student Development office works to ensure that student-athletes on all 19 of Northwestern's varsity teams receive a full range of support in academic advising, time management, and life skills, goal setting, financial aid, and various other academic and developmental services needed in their pursuit of excellence on and off the field. Kane served as the main liaison from the athletics department to the academic community on campus and served on the university’s Undergraduate Council. Kane was also a member of the Department of Athletics and Recreation’s senior staff and worked as a sports administrator for the cross country and women’s tennis programs.
Prior to joining Northwestern, Kane worked at the University of Illinois for 15 years, most recently as Director of Academic Services where she managed 12 full-time counselors and two graduate assistants. She started her career as a graduate assistant in 1999 at Illinois' Irwin Academic Center before being hired as a full-time academic counselor in 2001. Throughout her time at Illinois, she had various duties including oversight of study hall and tutor programming for all teams as well as academic counseling for a variety of sports including cross country and track, softball, gymnastics, football, and men's basketball. Before her promotion to director of academic services, Kane spent eight years as the lead academic counselor for the Illinois football program.
Kane Herbison graduated magna cum laude with double majors in sociology and physical education from Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1998, where she was a member of the women’s basketball team. She obtained her master's degree in kinesiology in 2001 from Illinois, where she also worked as a teaching assistant for the Department of Kinesiology.
Kieran Kelliher
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Kieran Kelliher serves as the VP, Finance (CFO role) for the Chicago Bulls, with a particular focus on business operations. He leads the finance and retail operations of the team, the business operations of the Windy City Bulls G League franchise, and is the Treasurer of Chicago Bulls Charities. He serves as a member of the NBA’s Risk Management Advisory Council, and previously on the NBA All-Star 2020 operating committee.
Kieran also serves on the faculty of Northwestern University as an Adjunct Lecturer, teaching ""Sports Business: Finance, Accounting & Economics"" for the Master’s in Sports Administration program, and is co-chair of the program’s admissions committee.
A licensed CPA in the state of Illinois and a member of the AICPA and Illinois CPA Society, Kieran graduated with Bachelors in both Accounting and Corporate Finance and a Masters in Accounting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Kieran is also serving on the national board of directors, the executive committee, and the local Chicago council for Feed My Starving Children (FMSC). FMSC's approach is simple: children and adults hand-pack meals specifically formulated for malnourished children; the meals are sent to approximately 70 countries each year where they are used to operate orphanages, schools, clinics and other building blocks of healthy communities.
Tania Kennedy
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Tania Kennedy is an adjunct instructor for Northwestern’s School of Professional Studies. She has been working in college athletics for 12 years and is currently in her 7th year at the BIG EAST Conference as the Senior Director of Sport Administration and Championships. In this role, Kennedy oversees the regular season and championships for five Olympic Sports and is responsible for scheduling, game management, and marketing. She also oversees BIG EAST championship merchandise, tournament champion gear, championship awards, and student-athlete gifts for 22 BIG EAST Olympic Sport championships. Prior to the BIG EAST, Kennedy was the Assistant Director of Championships at the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. She received a bachelor’s degree in Communications from Saint Peter’s University where she was a member of the women’s basketball team. She also received a Master's in Professional Studies from St. John's University.
Alex Kerr
Contact Information
- alexander.kerr@northwestern.edu
- alex.c.kerr@gmail.com
- alex@trajektory.com
- alexkerr.com, trajektory.com
Alex Kerr, CEO of Trajektory, brings a blend of quantitative, strategy, and marketing expertise to his present role. Trajektory is an award winning B2B SaaS solution revolutionizing the way organizations interact and leverage their sponsorship data and insights throughout the sports, media & entertainment industry.
Prior to Trajektory, Alex oversaw growth marketing and business intelligence at Shop Your Way, an internationally acclaimed loyhalty and e-commerce platform. Prior to joining Shop Your Way, Alex helped build both a marketing analytics and business intelligence department at Monumental Sports & Entertainment, the largest integrated sports and entertainment company in the country – owns and operates the NHL Capitals, NBA Wizards, WNBA Mystics, AFL Valor, AFL Brigade, eSports Team Liquid, Capital One Arena, EagleBank Arena, Kettler Capitals Iceplex.
Alex earned a B.A. in Economics from Kenyon College and an M.B.A. from Duke University’s, The Fuqua School of Business. It was there he discovered the importance of effectively building teams and operational efficiencies.
G. Scott Kirkpatrick
Scott Kirkpatrick, currently of Chicago Sports & Entertainment Partners, has more than 20 years of experience in the sports marketing industry. He was a senior vice president and director of Hill & Knowlton’s sports marketing practice, where he worked with Allstate, NASCAR and BCS sponsorships; the Chicago 2016 Olympic Bid; the Pittsburgh Pirates; the Tampa Bay Rays; Allianz; Adidas; and others. Prior to joining H&K, Scott was at Draft Worldwide and at Kemper Sports Marketing, where he worked on major golf tournaments, built a premier college basketball tournament and developed sports marketing programs for NutraSweet, Equal Sweetener, Fresh Look Contact Lenses, the Oprah Winfrey Show, Frontier Communications and Glenlivet. Kirkpatrick earned his MBA at Northwestern.
Katie Krall
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Katie Krall spent 2022 as a Development Coach with the Boston Red Sox where she oversaw pitch design, advance scouting and integrating data into player plans. This was her first season in uniform and coaching 1st base wearing #43. She previously was part of the Global Strategy team at Google focusing on Google Workspace after two seasons at the Cincinnati Reds as a Baseball Operations Analyst, a position that combined the worlds of roster construction, analytics, and scouting. After graduating from Northwestern University, Krall worked for a year and a half at Major League Baseball in the Commissioner’s Office in New York City as a League Economics & Operations Coordinator. At MLB, Krall advised Clubs on 40-man roster management, MLB rules and compliance, major league administration, and salary arbitration. In 2016, Krall planned the World Series Trophy Tour for the Chicago Cubs. The previous summer, she was an Assistant General Manager in the Cape Cod Baseball League. She received her MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.
LaKeisha Marsh
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LaKeisha Marsh, a partner at Akerman, LLP. serves as the chair of Akerman’s Government Affairs and Public Policy Practice Group, leading a bipartisan team of professionals providing strategic counsel on policy and regulatory issues in the United States. With a comprehensive legal background serving the higher education sector, including as an NCAA staff member, LaKeisha also serves as the chair of Akerman's Higher Education and Collegiate Athletics Practice. She represents colleges, universities, and related institutions on federal and state regulatory compliance, accreditation, state licensure, institutional governance, and collegiate sports and NCAA compliance-related matters. She has structured and executed a broad range of transactional, restructuring, finance, and corporate governance matters for educational institutions. She holds numerous leadership positions at the firm, including a member of the firm's Board of Directors and Co-Chair of its Women Initiative Network. LaKeisha received her Bachelors of Arts in Political Science from Clark Atlanta University and her law degree from Loyola University Chicago School of Law.
Leslie Cervantes McGreevy
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Leslie Cervantes McGreevy is currently the Director of Analytics Operations at Excel Sports Management. She has 7+ years of experience in the Sports Industry and has an extensive background in working and finding insights with large data sets. She also works heavily with Fortune 500 companies, global media organizations, and major professional sports properties in analyzing cross-channel valuation of sponsorships.
Leslie is on the DEI advisory board for Excel Sports Management. She is also on the Committee for WISE Chicago(Women In Sports and Entertainment).
Leslie earned a Masters in Predictive Analytics from Northwestern University in 2012. She also successfully ran her own health care business for 10 years and sold it in 2017. On top of selling her own company, Leslie also has 15+ years in Business Development background. Lastly, she was an integral piece in the acquisition of Block Six Analytics.
Kurt Melcher
Contact Information
- kurt.melcher@northwestern.edu
- @itsfromkurt
Kurt Melcher is the Executive Director of Esports at Intersport and Robert Morris University in Chicago, IL. For nearly two years, Kurt and the Intersport Esports Group have served as the NCAA’s strategic esports advisor, leading the governing body’s research of the collegiate esports community and developing frameworks for how esports could be incorporated into the NCAA model. Additionally, Kurt and the Intersport team work with NCAA member conferences to develop esports programming as well as individual universities to build their competitive esports programs, including areas such as administrative staffing and player recruitment, facility design and co-curricular initiatives.
Melcher’s work for the Intersport Esports Group delivers bold marketing solutions, business strategy, investment intelligence and original production services to brands, publishers, leagues, teams, universities and investors. The Intersport Esports Group is the driving force behind notable work for clients that include the NCAA, Warner Bros., Rocket Mortgage, Samsung, Capcom, Red Bull and Kraft Heinz.
Kurt rose to prominence in 2014, when he made Robert Morris University the first college to recognize esports as part of the athletic department and offer athletic scholarships to gamers, helping legitimize the world of collegiate esports. An athletic administrator and coach for more than 15 years, Melcher recognized the core educational elements involved in traditional sports and believes the same holds true in esports.
Kurt’s visionary program has been highlighted in a number of prominent news outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Time Magazine, ESPN, NPR, HBO Real Sports, and in the documentary film “All Work All Play.” Kurt also became a TED speaker when he presented the TED Talk “Gamers, The Rising Star of Collegiate Athletics” in 2016.
Danny O'Leary
Contact Information
- daniel.oleary@northwestern.edu
- Outside The Boards
In nearly two decades, Mr. O'Leary has become an accomplished business development and integrated marketing professional, having worked for some of the industry’s leading and award winning agencies and thought leaders, including IMG, Intersport and IEG Consulting. This experience prepared him to lead the United States Polo Association’s marketing and corporate partnership interests. While there, he led a number of USPA marketing and business milestones, including an enhanced broadcast and digital distribution approach that would lay the foundation for USPA's Global Polo VOB network. He also established an enhanced and measurable social media presence, refined brand strategy, more impactful PR and communications outreach, and developed a successful foundation for its sponsorship program. In 2017, Mr. O'Leary founded Laoghaire Partners. A parent organization that manages a portfolio of sports marketing, event properties and humanitarian businesses that emulate the Founder's passion work. This led to the creation of Outside The Boards™. An agency dedicated to the advancement of polo through insights, trends and consulting. After five years, Mr. O’Leary is involved with the sport at every level. He oversees the historic Oak Brook Polo Club and is chairman of the Chicago Polo Association, hosts an industry podcast, represents the commercial and marketing interests of some of the world’s top polo players as well as other forthcoming projects. Mr. O’Leary resides in Park Ridge, Illinois with his wife Taylor and two kids Kennedy and Finnegan.
Steve Rucks
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Steve Rucks (CPA) currently serves as the Vice President, Accounting and Finance at the United Center in Chicago, IL. Rucks graduated with a Bachelors degree in both Accounting and Business Administration from Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Prior to joining the United Center, Rucks was the Director of Accounting, Controller for the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association. During his time with the Bulls, he oversaw the Chicago Bulls accounting department, supervising the core accounting and financial reporting function. Prior to joining the Chicago Bulls, Rucks worked at FTD as the Manager of Financial Reporting. During his time at FTD, he was responsible for managing FTDs SEC financial reporting, involved in preparing and reviewing monthly financial results, assisted in various finance related projects (e.g. diligence and integration), and served as the primary technical accounting resource. Prior to joining FTD, Rucks worked in the Chicago audit practice of Deloitte & Touche, LLP. During his time at Deloitte he served clients across the construction, manufacturing, consumer business, and professional services industries supervising, planning, and performing financial statement and internal control audits for both public and private entities. Rucks also serves as an adjunct professor at Carthage College where he teaches Sports Industry, Economics & Financial Analysis for the Master of Science in Business Sports Management program.
Drew Russell
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Drew Russell is the vice president of sports properties at Intersport – an industry leading sports and entertainment marketing company based in Chicago. He possesses more than 16 years of experience in property development, sponsorship and event marketing. He is currently responsible for overseeing the growth and development of Intersport’s Sports Properties Division which features seven premier owned-and-operated events that are televised nationally. Russell is tasked with managing the strategic direction of the entire division and a staff that oversees corporate sales and marketing, ticketing, event operations, broadcast operations and communications. He was recently named to Sports Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 Class of 2013 honoring the most promising young executives in sports business under the age of 40. Prior to joining Intersport in 2008, Russell spent more than eight years in the experiential marketing division of WPP’s Wunderman, managing the sponsorship marketing portfolios of client’s like Sears Holdings and Goodyear. Russell began his career in the programming department at ESPN in Bristol, CN. He is a 1996 graduate of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a 2011 graduate of Northwestern University’s Masters in Sports Administration program.
Christopher Russo
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Christopher Russo is the CEO of Fifth Generation Sports, a boutique advisory firm focused on the intersection of sports, media, and technology. He is a recognized industry leader and innovator, having achieved success in high profile corporate roles at the NFL, NBC, and New Line Cinema. He is also an accomplished entrepreneur, having founded the largest independent digital sports company of its time (Fantasy Sports Ventures), which he ultimately sold to USA TODAY.
More recently, Mr. Russo served as a Managing Director at investment bank Houlihan Lokey, leading the firm’s Sports M&A practice. He was named a Variety Elite Dealmaker and completed some of the most groundbreaking transactions in the sports industry, including the sale of Sports Illustrated to Authentic Brands Group.
Previously, Mr. Russo served as Senior Vice President, New Media and Publishing, for the National Football League. In that role, he had broad P&L responsibility of the digital media and publishing business units and oversaw all day-to-day operations, including content, advertising sales, marketing, and business development. He completed digital media transactions with eBay, Yahoo, Sprint, CBS Sports, AOL, and Sirius, among others.
Mr. Russo holds a B.A. from Northwestern University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
Jason Sacks
Contact Information
- jason.sacks@northwestern.edu
- @jrsacks22
Jason Sacks is the Chief Development Officer for Positive Coaching Alliance, a non-profit focused on providing character-building sports experiences to youth and high school athletes. PCA partners with local schools and youth organizations to conduct workshops and provide essential education, tools and resources for administrators, coaches, parents and student-athletes. In his current role, Sacks oversees all revenue for the organization, including fundraising, national partnerships with the NBA, MLB, Under Armour/Curry Brand and Deloitte. Prior to taking on this role, Sacks was the executive director of PCA’s Chicago chapter. Before joining PCA in 2006, Sacks worked in sports television as a production assistant and segment producer for IMG's production company, TWI. Sacks received his master’s degree in Sports Management from New York University. While studying at NYU, Sacks was the assistant coach of the men’s basketball team and worked in the athletic department. For his undergraduate work, Sacks attended Syracuse University and was a broadcast journalism major.
Alex Saratsis
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Alex Saratsis serves as co-managing director of Octagon Basketball. In his role, Saratsis oversees the global marketing and talent management agency’s industry-leading basketball division, which represents more than 40 of the most exciting players in the game including two-time NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry, and two-time WNBA MVP Elena Delle Donne. Alongside co-managing director Jeff Austin, the pair oversees $1 Billion in active player contracts. With 20-years of experience in the industry, Saratsis is also responsible for management of Octagon’s international presence and building key relationships for the agency around the world. In addition, Saratsis directly represents a collection of the agency’s leading clients, including Antetokounmpo, Miami Heat C Bam Adebayo, and Los Angeles Lakers G Dennis Schroder. In December of 2020, Saratsis negotiated more than $450 million in player contracts, which included the largest contract in NBA history: a five-year, $228 million supermax extension for Antetokounmpo with the Milwaukee Bucks, and a five-year, $200 million max extension for Adebayo with the Miami Heat. Prior to joining Octagon in 2009, Saratsis managed international operations for CSMG. Saratsis began his career as a player representative at Edge Sports International. Saratsis graduated from Northwestern University in 2002.
Shawn Sullivan
Contact Information
- shawn.sullivan@northwestern.edu
- @shawnksullivan
- www.thevoiceforgood.com
Shawn K. Sullivan was elevated to deputy athletics director for marketing and strategic initiatives at Ball State University in December of 2021 following stints as assistant athletic director and associate athletic director. In that role, he oversees all marketing, communications, ticketing, licensing, and fan experience efforts for the Cardinals and serves on the athletic director’s executive team. He began his tenure in Muncie as the director of marketing and promotions in May 2014. In addition, he is the founder of The Voice for Good, LLC., a company providing voice solutions to companies and organizations that contributes a portion of compensation to mental health support efforts. From July 2011 to July 2013, Sullivan was the director of sales and marketing for the Northwestern University athletic department. Sullivan’s responsibilities included the creation, implementation, and evaluation of all internal and external marketing and advertising initiatives for the men’s basketball program, in addition to providing marketing support to all Wildcat sport teams. During the previous four years, as assistant athletic director at UIC, Sullivan oversaw marketing and game operations for all 18 of the Flames‘ programs. In 2010, Sullivan was appointed to oversee the ticket operations for the Flames as well. Other duties at UIC included licensing, community outreach, corporate sales and media relations consultation, the direction of ambassador/student workforce, along with working closely with the Student Athlete Advisory and Life Skills Committees.
For two years, Sullivan served as the Horizon League representative to the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators. Prior to being elevated to assistant athletic director, he was the director of campus marketing and game operations for two years. Before returning to his alma mater, Sullivan was the community relations manager for the Chicago Rush arena football club from 2003-2005. He directed all community initiatives, including youth football camp, reading, mascot, and kids’ club programs. In addition, Sullivan authored Web site features, game recaps, program features, press releases, and pitch letters while cultivating media contacts. Sullivan was selected to work ArenaBowl XIX for the Arena Football League.
From late 2001-2003, Sullivan worked in the sports information office at UIC--first as sports information assistant before being promoted to assistant sports information director. During his collegiate years, Sullivan apprenticed with the Flames, Rush, CLTV, and CAPRI Events while also working at Vertel’s, a running specialty store, and with Clif Bar. The Kankakee, Illinois native graduated in 2001 from UIC with a bachelor’s degree in Communications. He was captain and multiple letter award winner for the Flames cross country and track & field teams after winning the Class A high school state championship in the 1600 meter run for Bishop McNamara. Sullivan, via The Voice for Good, currently performs public address duties for the USL’s Indy Eleven, the WNBA’s Indiana Fever and the NBA’s Indiana Pacers. Additionally, he provides event announcing for local and regional triathlon/road racing events along with various voiceover opportunities. An adjunct faculty member at Northwestern University and Roosevelt University, he resides in Indianapolis with his wife, Molly, along with their children, Liam, Quinn, Mary Kate, and James.
Tanesha Wade
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Tanesha Wade joined the Chicago Bears Football Club in June 2013 as director of events and entertainment. Her department oversees the development, coordination and execution of the team’s fan events, game presentation, production and entertainment. Wade sets the vision and creative direction and works closely with all areas to engage fans throughout the year. Wade’s role expands beyond gameday and the touch points overseen by her team appeal to an increasingly diverse and youthful fan base and ultimately grow fan avidity for the club. Under Wade’s leadership, the team successfully launched multiple large-scale events and initiatives resulting in increased sponsorship opportunities and an evolved fan experience. Prior to joining the Bears, Tanesha worked for University of Minnesota Athletics Department as the director of premium seating and events the Chicago Rush Arena Football Team as director of operations. Wade intersects passion with purpose through commitment to advocacy and leadership. In addition to her current role, Wade serves as co-chair of the club’s Diversity & Inclusion Council and holds leadership, advisory and mentorship roles with multiple organizations. Wade holds a bachelor of science degree from Oregon State University where she was a member of the women’s basketball team.
Jill Weinberg
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Jill Weinberg is a research associate at the American Bar Foundation and a PhD candidate in sociology at Northwestern. Her current research focuses on the sociolegal construction of consent through a comparative case study of communities that engage in consensual violence. Her academic writings have appeared in numerous publications, including University of Virginia Law Review, In Brief, Southern California Law Review and Sociological Methods & Research. In college she was a Division I scholarship athlete on the women’s rowing team. She has a JD from Seattle University School of Law, an MA in social sciences from the University of Chicago and an MA in sociology from Northwestern.