A collaborative speaker series with the offices of Multicultural Student Affairs, Career Services, and Alumni Relations, the Dinner With 12 speaker series allows students to interact with alumni and prominent community leaders and engage in conversation.
About Jeff Ryan ’86
Jeff Ryan ’86 is the Senior Director for the United States Tennis Association, the national governing body for the sport of tennis and the recognized leader in promoting and developing the sport’s growth on every level in the United States, from local communities to the US Open. Highlights from Ryan’s career include:
- Member Senior Leadership Team for US Open since 1997. This is the largest annual sporting event and the machine that generates the revenues ($250M +) used to promote and develop the growth of tennis in the USA.
- Organized over 100 professional tennis events over 30 + years, many of which generated $2M + in revenues.
- Organized highest grossing, sold-out (tickets and domestic sponsorship) US Davis Cup Tie on record in Austin, TX in 2012.
- Organized first ever professional tennis event in open air baseball stadium (Petco Park).
- Negotiated and sold ATP 250 Tennis Tournament sanction to investor in Winston Salem, NC and acted as Tournament Director for ATP 250 Event in Memphis, TN including a total rebrand and reintroduction of sanction back into marketplace.
- Represent the USTA as a diplomat, in press conferences and meetings with host or competing nations’.
Ryan is experienced in prospecting of cities/venues, event sales and marketing plans, forming sponsorship sales and activation teams, all phases of ticket sales, operations management, hospitality, public relations, media relations, leveraging social media and assembling the necessary finance, legal and contract management tools, suppliers relevant to a successful event. Ryan has worked for the USTA for the last 20 years and prior to that for International Management Group (IMG), the preeminent sports marketing firm founded by the "grandfather" of sports marketing, Mark McCormack.
Ryan is known in his industry and within a global sport as a leader of high performance teams and setting the bar globally for event management.