Amy Brooks: How to lift women up in our industry
August 2022 - On the 50th anniversary of Title IX, I have been and will continue to shine a light on 50 women who have been amazing teachers, thereby affecting my sports career as well as the careers of other women and men in sport.
Buffy Fippel, Founder, TeamWorkOnline
Precious few women become team presidents. Rarer still are women who help nurture their female teammates - women helping women to rise to these top positions. Amy Brooks is one of those special women who excel while giving others a lift.
In 2010 Amy recruited Valerie Camillo, another management consultant, into TMBO. Val recognized the unique opportunity to work with Amy and the NBA. Side by side, Amy and Val crunched numbers and consulted with the teams. This laid the foundation for Val’s meteoric rise.
In 2013, with the
movement of Amy’s boss, Chris Granger, to the Sacramento
Kings, Amy herself was rewarded. She became one of the top women
in the NBA League Office, rising to Executive Vice President and heading the
Team Marketing and Business Operations department. In 2015, Forbes
voted her one of the most powerful women in sports. Two years
later, Amy was promoted to be the NBA’s Chief Innovation Officer and
President of TMBO, the first to hold such a role.
With four years
under Amy’s coaching, Val moved back to DC in 2014 to become Chief Revenue
Officer of the Washington Nationals, one of few women to achieve that role in
the MLB. She followed that to her current role as President of Business
Operations for Comcast Spectacor, which includes the role of President of
Business Operations of the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers and Wells Fargo
Center.
Under Amy’s
influence, there are more women, and men, whose careers are blossoming in the
sports business. Amy is a great coach to the many she
cultivates for senior sports positions. She may not receive the
similar public acclaim of star athletes or legendary college coaches. But
through our work with Amy and the NBA, we have seen her make a positive
difference to more than she knows.Amy and
I met at one of Jessica Gelman and Daryl Morey’s MIT Sloan Sports Data
Analytics Conferences. She was a graduate of Stanford University
where she had played varsity basketball. Some may credit Amy’s
incredible “vision,” “assist,” and subsequent “coaching” skills to her Final
Four playing days for Stanford’s legendary coach, Tara VanDerveer.
After
graduation, Amy worked in Product Management for Sun Microsystems;
then she got her MBA at Stanford Business School. Amy moved to
Bain & Company, a world-renowned management consulting
firm.
Without any
previous work experience in the sports business, in 2005 Amy joined
the NBA league office in Global Partnerships. After she had gotten
her feet wet, the NBA moved her into Team Marketing and Business Operations
(TMBO), their internal consulting group helping all NBA, WNBA and G-League
teams’ business operations. With Amy’s background in
consulting, marketing and analytics, she helped enhance the NBA teams’ revenues
through data analytics, making it the model for the other
leagues. TeamWork Online has been a recruiting partner to the NBA
since 2000 in part because of Amy.
In
2010 Amy recruited Valerie Camillo, another management consultant,
into TMBO. Val recognized the unique opportunity to work
with Amy and the NBA. Side by side, Amy and Val
crunched numbers and consulted with the teams. This laid the
foundation for Val’s meteoric rise.
In 2013, with the
movement of Amy’s boss, Chris Granger, to the Sacramento
Kings, Amy herself was rewarded. She became one of the top women
in the NBA League Office, rising to Executive Vice President and heading the
Team Marketing and Business Operations department. In 2015, Forbes
voted her one of the most powerful women in sports. Two years
later, Amy was promoted to be the NBA’s Chief Innovation Officer and
President of TMBO, the first to hold such a role.
With four years
under Amy’s coaching, Val moved back to DC in 2014 to become Chief Revenue
Officer of the Washington Nationals, one of few women to achieve that role in
the MLB. She followed that to her current role as President of Business
Operations for Comcast Spectacor, which includes the role of President of
Business Operations of the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers and Wells Fargo
Center.
Under Amy’s influence, there are more women, and men, whose careers are blossoming in the sports business. Amy is a great coach to the many she cultivates for senior sports positions. She may not receive the similar public acclaim of star athletes or legendary college coaches. But through our work with Amy and the NBA, we have seen her make a positive difference to more than she knows.