PRESS RELEASES

Atlanta Dream names Morgan Shaw Parker as President and Chief Operating Officer

In collaboration with TurnkeyZRG, The Atlanta Dream announced today that NFL Executive Morgan Shaw Parker will join the team as President and Chief Operating Officer. A remarkable milestone for the Dream and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), Shaw Parker brings over 25 years of experience and values-driven leadership at all levels of the sports industry. Most recently she served as Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Arthur M. Blank Sports & Entertainment (AMBSE) where she led marketing and communications initiatives for the Atlanta Falcons and Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Prior to AMBSE, Shaw Parker spent over a decade at Nike, Inc., five years with the Kansas City Chiefs and several years with two industry-leading sports marketing agencies.

“It is an incredible honor to join the WNBA and the Atlanta Dream, an organization whose new leadership celebrates its players and embraces their powerful roles both on the court and in the Atlanta community,” said Shaw Parker. “I have proactively championed women’s sports throughout my entire career and there’s no better time than now for me to take an active leadership role to shine a spotlight on these amazing athletes. I’m committed to working as hard as our athletes do to build an authentic brand that empowers women, represents the city, and exemplifies how a model professional sports franchise should be run.”

As President and COO of the Dream, Shaw Parker will be responsible for overseeing day-to-day business operations and revenue growth, and work closely with owners Larry Gottesdiener, Suzanne Abair and Renee Montgomery to implement their strategic vision. In this role, Shaw Parker will manage sponsorships, ticketing, retail, marketing, digital, in-game experience, human resources, community engagement and research and analytics. She comes to the Dream during a pivotal year in which the organization welcomed a new ownership group that includes Gottesdiener, Abair and Montgomery, who became the first former player to become both an owner and executive in the WNBA. Recently, the Dream was also named the 2020 ESPN Sports Humanitarian Team of the Year for the players’ remarkable work around social justice efforts last year that influenced the Georgia Senate election.

“Morgan Shaw Parker is an absolute force in the sports industry, and she will be a true game-changer for the Atlanta Dream,” said Larry Gottesdiener, Chairman of the Atlanta Dream. “Morgan’s genuine, thoughtful professionalism was an instant fit for our culture, and her passion for women’s sports matches our own.”

“I am ecstatic to welcome Morgan to the Atlanta Dream family. Her enthusiasm for making an impact on the City of Atlanta is exactly the kind of leadership we need,” said Renee Montgomery, Owner and Vice President of the Atlanta Dream. “I can’t wait to collaborate with Morgan to boost our players’ visibility in the community, to continue earning the respect of our city, and to make sure that the game we love is accessible to all those who want to be part of the WNBA experience .”

At AMBSE, Shaw Parker oversaw brand and sales marketing, communications, broadcast, digital and creative design for the Atlanta Falcons and Mercedes-Benz Stadium. She spearheaded the team’s brand refresh, inclusive of the Falcons’ uniforms, which resulted in the single-highest merchandise sales results in team history. She also helped increase the team’s revenue by implementing analytics and outside market data to drive sales, digital content, and marketing efforts. Prior to her role as Chief Marketing Officer, Shaw Parker served as Vice President of brand strategy, and Vice President of football communications.

At Nike, Shaw Parker developed long-term marketing communications strategies to support Nike’s brand and business objectives, including the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada and 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Additionally, she managed multiple multi-million-dollar fiscal operating budgets and set strategic communications plans for professional sports leagues outfitted by Nike (NFL, MLB, NBA, WNBA), in addition to NCAA college football, men’s and women’s training, sportswear and running divisions.

Beyond her vast expertise, Shaw Parker enters this role as a distinguished member of the sports industry who has dedicated herself to bettering the industry as a whole and for women. AdWeek named Shaw Parker as one of its “2019 Most Powerful Women in Sports,” and Sports Business Journal has recognized her as a “Game Changer” in the sports industry. Shaw Parker sits on the board of Atlanta-based Rising Media Stars founded by LaChina Robinson – an organization that empowers the next generation of Black women in sports media. She also spent time on the board of WIN for KC, part of the Kansas City Sports Commission.

Shaw Parker graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with her B.S./B.A. in Business Administration, with an emphasis in marketing and English, and her Master’s in Science/Education, with an emphasis in sports administration from the University of Kansas. She, her husband and two young boys currently reside in John’s Creek, Georgia.

ABOUT TURNKEYZRG

Founded in 1996, TurnkeyZRG is a highly specialized talent recruitment/executive search firm filling C-level, senior-level and mid-management level positions throughout sports, entertainment and media. Over the past 25 years, TurnkeyZRG has filled more than 1,400 positions throughout sports, entertainment and media. TurnkeyZRG helps teams, leagues, stadiums, arenas, theaters, college athletic departments, events, sponsors, agencies, media companies, private equity companies and other clients identify, recruit and hire the very best management talent. Turnkey now benefits from ZRG’s global footprint, full array of industry practice groups, data-driven, analytical search tools, and technology investment in changing the way executive search/talent recruiting is done. TurnkeyZRG becomes a tech-enabled disrupter of the prior executive search model. For more information about TurnkeyZRG, visit www.turnkeyzrg.com.