Features

Industry appointments round-up: September 15-21

A round-up of key appointments from within the sports and events industries from the past week.

Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis has left the Premier League club to take up a similar role with Italian Serie A outfit AC Milan. Gazidis will leave Arsenal by the end of October and will become chief executive of AC Milan on December 1.

Arsenal’s head of football relations, Raul Sanllehi, has been appointed as the club’s head of football following Gazidis’ departure, while chief commercial officer Vinai Venkatesham has been promoted to the position of managing director. Sanllehi will lead football activities with Venkatesham to oversee all business operations.

Tobias Habla, senior executive manager of touring at Live Nation GSA, has been named as the head of the company’s new office in the German city of Munich. The office opened on September 1.

TicketGuardian has appointed Scott Matulich as its new chief financial officer. Matulich joins TicketGuardian from Wells Fargo Bank, where he held senior finance roles as vice-president and regional finance manager. Matulich will lead financial operations and investor relations for TicketGuardian, a mobile-first insurtech firm.

Sports PR and marketing agency Macesport has promoted Ben Thompson to the position of chief executive. Thompson has spent nine years with Macesport as account director and has led many successful global campaigns for the agency.

Twickenham Experience and England Rugby Hospitality have partnered with 2-Michelin-starred chef Tom Kerridge. Kerridge is contributing to the design of the menu for the new Lock restaurant at Twickenham’s new East Stand, and will also run the restaurant for each of England’s four Quilter Internationals games in November.

Jurgen Mainka has joined Inter Miami CF as the Major League Soccer expansion franchise’s first chief business officer. Mainka will oversee team and stadium business and manage all non-soccer operations aspects of the club, covering administration, marketing, communications, sponsorship, ticket sales and stadium operations. He will report directly to managing owner Jorge Mas. Mainka previously worked as director of marketing and communications and then chief commercial officer and deputy general secretary at CONCACAF.

Live music promoter Music+Sport has appointed PC-Rae as its new artist booker. PC-Rae is best known for his work as an artist booker for festivals such as Slottsfjell in Norway and the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas. In his new role, PC-Rae will be responsible for overseeing and acquiring talent for Music+Sport’s wide range of live music events at sporting venues.

North American stock car-racing series NASCAR has named Steve Phelps as its new president, effective from October 1. Brent Dewar has stepped down from the role and will remain with the company through the end of the 2018 season, transitioning to a senior consulting and advisory role in 2019. Phelps will assume the duties held by Dewar and will report to Nascar’s chairman and chief executive, Jim France.

Do you have news of an appointment that we should know about? Get in touch by emailing news.editor@thestadiumbusiness.com and we’ll include it on our next round-up.