Panelists

Chris Wallace

General Manager, Memphis Grizzlies

Chris Wallace is the General Manager for the Memphis Grizzlies. He has been in this role since June 18, 2007. Before assuming that position, he was the General Manager of the Boston Celtics for 10 seasons. Prior to his role with the Celtics, Wallace served as director of player personnel for the Miami Heat. The Heat won a franchise-record 61 games in 1996-97, and Wallace is credited with discovering many of the Heat's players.
Wallace also worked in various scouting capacities for the Heat, the Portland Trail Blazers, Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Clippers, and New York Knicks. He also worked as a draft consultant for the United States Basketball League.

Wallace is native of Buckhannon, West Virginia. He and his wife, Debby, have a son, Truman.

Dan Zimmer

Vice President of Business Operations, Boston Bruins

Dan Zimmer is in his third season in Boston as the Bruins' Vice President of Business Operations. He is responsible for the team's business strategy as well as overseeing the club's ticket sales, legal, finance, box office and retail operations, and provides assistance in the management of the Boston Bruins Charitable Foundation.

A native of Buffalo, NY and a graduate of that city's Canisius College with both a BS degree in finance and an MBA, he came to Boston in 2006 following 11 years with affiliate Delaware North Companies, Inc., most recently as Treasurer and Vice President.  In his role with DNC, Zimmer was involved in numerous sports business initiatives and strategies, including the financial relationships for the Boston Bruins and the TD Banknorth Garden, the company's Sportservice contract food service business and its various international businesses.  He has also worked directly with the National Hockey League on numerous business matters. His duties with Delaware North included managing the corporate treasury area and overseeing DNC's relationships with lending institutions and investment managers for DNC and its affiliates, including the Boston Bruins.

Prior to joining Delaware North, Zimmer was a vice president of commercial lending with the former Chemical Bank, now known as J.P. Morgan Chase Bank.  An avid cyclist, 2009 will mark his third year of participation in the Pan-Mass Challenge as a member of the Boston Bruins Charitable Foundation Bike Team.

Buffy Gordon Filippell

President, TeamWork Consulting

Over 15,000 men and women have a job in sports through Buffy G. Filippell - either through her executive search practice, TeamWork Consulting, or through her online executive recruiting software system, TeamWork Online.

In 1987, Buffy Filippell launched a first-of-its-kind business, a retained executive search firm specifically geared towards recruiting middle to senior level executives for sports teams, leagues, associations, arenas, high profile sporting events, corporate sponsors, sports marketing agencies and some sporting goods companies. Since then, TeamWork Consulting has been one of the most recognized retained search firms helping to fill over 350 executive positions with such notable sports organizations such as NASCAR; PGA TOUR; National Basketball Association; National Football League; National Hockey League; Major League Soccer, International Motor Speedway; Olympic Governing Bodies of Skiing, Cycling, Boxing; corporate sponsors such as Wells Fargo Bank, Anderson Consulting; agencies such as Velocity Sports & Entertainment; Millsport; Wunderman Cato Johnson and ProServ, and major events such as the 1994 World Cup and 1999 Women's World Cup (soccer), and Olympic Games in Salt Lake. Her clients have included twelve NFL teams, eleven NHL teams, twelve NBA teams, and nine MLB teams. She's recruited Commissioners of Leagues, team presidents, Chief Operating Officers of major events, and senior level executives with sports sponsors and agencies.

During the internet boom of the late 1990s, Filippell created and introduced a technical online version of her executive recruiting process, called TeamWork Online. The software system replicated her successful executive search methods in notifying prospective candidates, screening the right candidates, developing candidate profiles, and online interviewing techniques so teams, leagues and sports organizations could use the internet to identify and recruit their candidates through their own websites. This software system launched in the fall of 1999 has attracted over 1,000,000 candidate records applying for over 20,000 jobs across 47 job boards and has filled 73% of all jobs posted with online candidates. In 8 years the system has filled over 15,000 positions with online candidates.

Her 500+ minor/professional team, league, organization, and national governing body clients include many of the leaders in sports: Action Sports Tour, AEG, Anschutz Entertainment Group Germany, AFL/af2, AHL, American Airlines, Atlanta Falcons, Atlantic League, ATP/WTA Tour, California League, Charlotte Bobcats, Churchill Downs, College Sports Job Board, Comcast-Spectacor, DeBartolo Sports University, DNC Sportservice, Dover Motorsports, ECHL, Flash Seats, Frontier League, Houston Texans ,IMG, ISC Motorsports, LPGA, Mandalay Sports and Entertainment, Memphis Grizzlies, MLB and its Teams, MLS and its Teams, NBA/WNBA/D-League Teams, NFL Teams, NHL and its Teams, NLL, Opening Day Partners, Orlando Magic, Pacific Coast League Teams, Palace Sports and Entertainment, Portland Trail Blazers, Sam Houston Race Park, San Francisco 49ers, Sears Centre, Silicon Valley Sports and Entertainment, South Atlantic League, Tampa Bay Lightning, U.S. National Governing Bodies, Velocity Sports and Entertainment, World Racing Group, and WPS.

Ms. Filippell started her career with Wilson Sporting Goods as a National Tennis Promotions Assistant in Chicago and was promoted to Manager of Racquet Sports and Golf Promotions for Wilson based in London, England. From 1978 to 1984, she worked for Mark McCormack's International Management Group (IMG) as its first female tennis agent and represented America's young tennis star, Andrea Jaeger, and Australian tennis legend, Ken Rosewall. She also promoted IMG's Tennis Legends Tour featuring Rod Laver, and a pro celebrity tennis tour headed by Academy Award winning actor and tennis enthusiast, Charlton Heston. She also served as the Commissioner of the Women's Professional Racquetball Tour.

After returning from a second European stint, this time in Turin, Italy, by January 1985, Filippell joined Korn/Ferry International, a worldwide executive recruiting firm. Although she worked on searches for senior executives in banking, manufacturing, insurance and industrial products, Filippell brought in and conducted searches for the Women's Tennis Association, LPGA, U.S. Cycling Federation, Sporting Goods Manufacturer's Association, Prince and the Women's International Pro Tennis Council.

Filippell currently serves as a Senior Advisory Board Member for Indiana University's Kelley School of Business Sports and Entertainment Academy as well as Indiana's Dean's Associate program for the School of Health Physical Education and Recreation. She has led two sports marketing high school internship initiatives promoting Hawken School athletics in Gates Mills, OH in cooperation with the Cleveland Browns and Cleveland Cavaliers. In 1987, she founded the Ohio Games (earlier called the Ohio Sports Festival), a statewide amateur Olympic-type event for athletes of all ages in the state of Ohio. She also served on the Executive Committee of the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission until 1999. She was formerly a Trustee on the Board of the Women's Sports Foundation and co-published the first Directory of Women in Sports Business with Richard Lipsey. In 2001, she was awarded the “Visionary” Award at the Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Innovation in Business Conference which was sponsored by SBN Magazine. Then, in 2006, Indiana University recognized her as their HPER Alumni Leadership and Achievement Award winner as part of their celebration of National Girls and Women in Sport day.

Filippell was graduated from Indiana University; Bloomington, Indiana, with a Bachelor of Science degree and a varsity letter in tennis in 1976. She and her husband, Mark, have an 18-year-old son, Davis, a freshman at Williams College.

Bill Allard

CEO, Athlete's Performance

Bill Allard is the Chief Executive Officer at Athletes’ Performance, an industry leader in performance training for professional athletes. AP has trained many of the top performers in sport, including NFL first round picks (8 in 2008) and veterans (over 180 currently in the NFL), NBA first round picks (7 in 2007), World Cup heroes (US Women's Soccer, German Men's Soccer) and  MLB All-Stars (6 in 2008). Bill oversees daily operations and growth for three Athletes’ Performance facilities across the United States, and also leads AP’s consumer brand, Core Performance, which provides sports training, fitness, nutrition and lifestyle content that is developed by the experts at Athletes’ Performance. The Core Performance portfolio includes four popular fitness books, a digital media site (coreperformance.com) and a luxury personalized training center in Santa Monica, California. In addition to leading Athletes’ Performance and Core Performance operations and growth, Bill oversees development and activation with AP and CP partners, including adidas, Gatorade, GoFit, EAS, and Sheraton.

Prior to joining Athletes’ Performance, Bill was Chairman and CEO of Marquis Jet Partners. Marquis Jet, through an exclusive partnership with Netjets (a Berkshire Hathaway company), provides private jet travel for individuals and corporations. He led the company through its growth from 0-$500 million in sales in five years.

Before leading Marquis, he served as president and COO of SFX Sports Group where he directed all business development, acquisition strategy and overall corporate operations for the Sports Group's four core competencies: Event Management; Marketing; Talent Representation; and Television & Entertainment. Under his direction, the Sports Group developed and produced internationally televised sporting events, managed and marketed hundreds of professional athletes, supported the sports marketing activities of numerous Fortune 500 corporations, and produced a wide range of sports-themed television series and feature films.

Prior to SFX, he served as president and chief operating officer of ProServ, Inc., an integrated sports marketing firm. He has appeared on The Sporting News "The Top 100 Most Powerful People in Sports" for three years, in 1999 was also named one of Sports Business Journal's "Forty Under 40," and was listed by the international paper The Guardian as one of the 50 most powerful people in the world of sports.

Bill received his MBA in 1989 from the Harvard Business School and received a BS from Babson College in 1983.

Moderator

Kristin Lane

Partner, Forty Forty

Kristin joined Forty Forty in October 2006 to establish an East Coast presence for the Bay Area agency founded by partners John Trotter and Scott Drummond in 2001.  Forty Forty specializes in extending corporate brands into sports and entertainment environments through brand strategy, comprehensive identity systems, and unique consumer experiences to fulfill the 'sweet spot' where fan, team, sport and corporate brand meet.  Kristin guides strategy and brand extension efforts for corporate, entertainment and sports brands seeking to leverage new communications platforms.

She has more than 15 years experience in partnership marketing. She is adept at ensuring that when two brands are creating a joint marketing venture that the right tools are created to respect and preserve the existing equities of both brands, while creating something that is the greater than the sum of the parts.

Prior to joining Forty Forty, Kristin directed the corporate sponsorships and brand promotions as SVP for the Royal Bank of Scotland's US subsidiary Citizens Financial Group. Throughout her tenure, she negotiated complex sponsorship and co-marketing deals with professional sports teams, public entities and retail brands including the $95 million naming rights agreement with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Forty Forty's client list includes the NFLPA, NFL Players Brand, Atlanta Braves, Coca-Cola, Williams Energy, Gap, Visa, Major League Soccer, and numerous other brands engaged in leveraging sports and entertainment.