Conference Series: 3
Join us this Friday, March 19th for our third installment of the She Is: Conference Series, She is Unstoppable
This virtual conference call will feature businesswomen in the sports industry! Panel guests include Kristi Herold, Maggie Brennan, and Sara Campbell. Biographies are offered below.
We will be joined by Rachel Meehan, founder of Parasol Coaching who will be leading us in a 30-minute goal setting session!
SHE IS: Unstoppable
Kristi Herold
Kristi Herold helps connect people through play and helps companies unlock profit through play. Kristi’s vision is to get 1 million people playing annually.
While Kristi never played intramural sports and doesn’t follow a single pro sports team, she is the founder and CEO of a multi-million dollar global business that has connected over 1.5 million people through play since inception - one of the largest adult recreational sports leagues in the world.
Pre-pandemic Kristi had grown her team to 40 full time and 350 part time employees, that together built a community of over 150,000 annual participants. She has completed eight acquisitions in Canada and the US. When sports were mandated to stop due to the pandemic, Kristi focused her team on staying true to their core purpose of “connecting people through play” with the creation of JAM - now helping corporate clients connect through play around the world.
In 2020, Kristi was named to the esteemed “Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women” list, and was a top 3 finalist in the Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards. She was also the proud recipient of the North American Sport & Social Industry Association’s “Industry Impact Award.” Her organization has been certified as a “Great Places to Work - Canada” and in 2009 she was awarded the Governor General’s “Queen’s Diamond Jubilee” in recognition of her contribution to the community.
Kristi is a Mum to three busy teenagers and bonus-Mum to three more. She has a passion for active living, travel, speaking and entrepreneurship, and throughout her life she has been a proven connector and community builder. Kristi believes we are never too old to “keep playing”!
Maggie Brennan is the Coordinator of Games Operations and Delivery at the Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC). In this role, she leads the planning and operational delivery of key Games programming including Arrivals & Departures, Telecommunications, Transportation and Travel for Team Canada for the Parapan American and Paralympic Games. Prior to this role, Maggie worked with the Paralympic Foundation of Canada (PFC) on their signature fundraising event, the ParaTough Cup. She began as an intern with the PFC in 2016, through to its first ParaTough Cup at the University of Toronto. Over the course of her tenure with the Foundation, the ParaTough grew to 4 locations across Canada, raising over $500,000 for the Paralympic movement in Canada. Maggie also attended the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Paralympic Games in a volunteer capacity with the CPC and is now focused on preparations for the 2020 Summer Paralympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.
In 2018, Maggie was selected as Canada’s Young Change-Maker by the Canadian Olympic Committee to join Team Canada in Buenos Aires at the Youth Olympic Games. Since then, she continues in her volunteer role as an International Olympic Committee (IOC) Young Leader, receiving financial support from the IOC to run programming dedicated to promoting sport and the Youth Olympic Games movement to young people across Canada. Maggie is a member of the Commonwealth Youth Sport for Development and Peace Network (CYSDP), and has experience volunteering for the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2015, the 2017 Grey Cup Festival, and as a minor women’s hockey coach for the Nepean Girls Hockey Association.
Maggie holds an Honours Bachelor of Commerce degree in Sport Administration from Laurentian University, where she was a member of the Varsity Women’s Hockey team as Assistant Captain for three of her four years on the team. She was the Top Graduate of the Faculty of Management in 2017, a 4-time All-Canadian USport athlete and a recipient of the Pride, Excellence and Tradition Varsity Women’s Hockey award in 2015. Maggie enjoys long distance running and playing recreational volleyball and touch football. She is learning how to scuba dive and enjoys travelling the world.
Maggie Brennan
Sara Campbell
Sara Campbell is in her third season with the NHL as part of their in-game communications team and 10th year working in sports. Pre-COVID, she operated inside the Situation Room splitting her time between relaying information about video reviews and coach’s challenges to teams and media, as well as using stats to drive storylines across all 31 clubs. Now, the Situation Room comes to her living room via zoom.
Prior to her current position, Sara spent eight seasons with the Sudbury Wolves. Through her time with the club, Sara dabbled in game presentation, social media, in-game hosting, marketing, group sales, community engagement, and accounting. Oftentimes, she could be found with a phone in her hand. Indeed, Sara also saw the inside of Howler, the Wolves’ mascot. An accolade of that time was maintaining social feeds through a combined 45 wins over the span of three 68-game seasons, a true test of optimism. Sara also made stops with the Vancouver Canucks and London Knights along the way. Eternally grateful for the opportunities she has had and the friendships made, junior hockey will always hold a special place in her heart.
Sara recently completed her MBA through Laurentian and continues to be a teacher’s assistant. In her spare time, she does freelance writing and pro-bono consulting for junior teams. She loves to write through a website she started, Eight Days a Week, and immediately likes anyone who reads her posts.