JENNIFER L. KARPF Founder / Executive Director National Sports Marketing Network (NSMN)

For more than 34 years, Jennifer Karpf has made significant leadership contributions to the sports business & non-profit sectors. Her expertise areas include sports marketing, entrepreneurship, membership development, board relations/governance, social media, business development & sales. She is a frequent speaker on sports marketing, sponsorship and sales development and she has been interviewed as an industry expert by media outlets including CNN. Her work has been covered by numerous national & local media outlets including The New York Times, Crains, Forbes, Chicago Tribune, Sports Business Daily and SportsBusiness Journal.

In recognition of her contributions to the sports business industry, Jennifer has received multiple nominations for SportsBusiness Journal's prestigious "Forty-Under-40" award & for SportsBusiness Journal's "Female Game Changer" award. In 2024, LinkedIn recognized Jennifer as a Top Entrepreneurship Voice.

In May 2016, Jennifer was nominated to participate at an invitation-only Women's Leadership Summit hosted by First Lady Michelle Obama.

In December 2013, Jennifer was appointed as a member of the Real-Time Academy of Short Form Arts & Sciences. Among celebrities and business leaders, Jennifer served as a judge for the prestigious Shorty Awards.

In 2012, Jennifer was honored by CNN and named to their New Guard -- a prestigious group of 60 newsmakers and entrepreneurs selected from across the country.

As the Founder & Executive Director of the National Sports Marketing Network (NSMN) – the industry's first and only trade association she founded in 1998, Jennifer has become the voice of the sports business industry, developing dynamic programming that attracts news makers as speakers; a stellar Board of industry leadership to govern the organization; and one of the most comprehensive daily benefits programs of any member-based organization. She spearheads the organization’s educational initiatives, marketing, membership and business development, as well as the extensive suite of career development offerings. Today, this rapidly growing national organization includes more than 13,000 members across more than 50 cities. The LinkedIn community includes 30,000 connections and more than 33,000 followers from around the world.

Under Jennifer's leadership, NSMN launched the first online sports business bookstore. The website included more than 40 book categories that offered sports business and general management books for sale at a discount. Jennifer forged relationships with marketing and business book publishers and authors to be able to promote and sell newly released titles. Her social media efforts built a solid customer base of sports consumers to complement her business database.

In 2008, through her vast contact base and broad industry reach, Jennifer founded Sports Tackles Cancer, a unique national fundraising program that benefited various cancer charities that served as beneficiaries of her program. In addition to individual donor support, hundreds professional sports leagues and teams, sports marketing agencies, sports media outlets and brands supported Jennifer's unique community initiative. For the first three years of the program, the American Cancer Society served as the program's sole beneficiary with 100% of all funds raised donated to ACS. Additionally, Sports Tackles Cancer creating increased awareness about cancer detection, research, patient advocacy and ACS's Hope Lodges. To date, Jennifer’s cancer advocacy efforts have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for cancer research and patient care. Due to the success of her community program, Sports Tackles Cancer went on to support multiple cancer beneficiaries (and families) that were serviced with pro-bono sports marketing services and fundraising initiatives. Her fundraising efforts reached sports executives and sports fans across the country to encourage them to donate their time and resources to those battling cancer. Sports Tackles Cancer remains the only sports business industry-wide charitable program of its kind in the United States.

In recognition for her efforts and community leadership with Sports Tackles Cancer, Jennifer was nominated for NY1's "New Yorker of the Week."

Jennifer recently started her eighth year on the Nassau County Department of Social Services Advisory Council where she serves on the Family and Children Committee. She served on the Executive Committee of UJA-Federation of New York’s Sports for Youth initiative from 2001-2014, which included chairing the Governance Committee. In January 2011, she was appointed to the Board of Directors of the ALS Association-Greater New York Chapter, where she focused on recruiting donor support from the sports business industry. Jennifer served as an inaugural Advisory Board member of the East West Sports Summit, an international conference focusing on sports in the Asia Pacific and the United States. Her past community involvement also includes active Board participation with the American Cancer Society; Combined Jewish Philanthropies/Boston; The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; and the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania.

A frequent public speaker on sports marketing, sponsorship, careers in sports business and women in leadership, Jennifer has been a panel speaker and moderator for various organizations including Boston University Alumni Association; Variety magazine's Sports & Entertainment conference; MBA Media & Entertainment conference; and Fordham University's Gabelli School of Business. She was the keynote speaker for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's national convention, where she also led smaller sessions on sponsorship and marketing.

In addition to her role with NSMN, at age 28, she helped New York University write the first curriculum for their brand new sports business undergraduate degree program. As the youngest adjunct professor teaching in The Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management, Jennifer taught multiple undergraduate courses including “Introduction to Sports Marketing;” “Crisis Public Relations for Sports & Entertainment” & the four required “Professional Development” courses. She continues to tutor and teach entry level sports marketing professionals via NSMN's very successful, highly-rated "Sports Marketing 101" classes that sell out every time that they are offered. Jennifer leads NSMN's extensive suite of career development services that are offered to professionals from CEO-level to college students.

Prior to launching NSMN, Jennifer worked in the marketing department at TIME Magazine where she was assigned to blue-chip accounts including Merrill Lynch, Volkswagen, American Express and Savin. While there, she shaped the magazine’s sports marketing focus and as a department of one, her sports development efforts significantly grew TIME’s advertising business. She left TIME Magazine to create and launch NSMN. Prior to TIME, Jennifer also held various sales development, marketing and public relations roles at Senior Golfer Magazine, The Children’s Museum, Boston and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She was the first and last public relations intern at the famed Boston Garden.

Jennifer graduated with honors from Boston University where she simultaneously earned a BS in Mass Communications and Public Relations and a BA in Art History. She was the founder and president of the Art History Association within the College of Liberal Arts.

Contact:
jenkarpf@sportsmarketingnetwork.com
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