U.S. Ski & Snowboard CEO Sophie Goldschmidt on Leading at the Intersection of Sports and Business

[00:00:00] Roy Notowitz: Hello and welcome to How I Hire, the podcast where today's top executives share stories of their leadership journey, including the defining moments that tested their values, sharpened their judgment, and shaped how they build teams and lead with purpose. I'm Roy Notowitz, founder and CEO of Noto Group Executive Search.

You can learn more about us at notogroup.com. As a trusted partner to mission and values-driven consumer brands, we've had the privilege of working alongside some of the world's most inspiring operators as they've tackled the challenge of building high-performance leadership teams. In this podcast, we spark a conversation about how to achieve success in hiring as well as creating purposeful leadership for the next generation of companies.

Global sports marketing leader Sophie Goldschmidt joins me on the podcast today. Sophie is the President and CEO of U.S. Ski & Snowboard, the national governing body for Olympic and Paralympic skiing and snowboarding in the United States. Sophie's built an impressive career at the intersection of sports, business, and leadership.

She began at Adidas and went on to hold leadership roles with some of the most recognized organizations in sports, including the NBA, Women's Tennis Association, Rugby Football Union, PGA, and World Surf League. Sophie and I talk about how sports shaped her life and career, how she broke into the industry and built her path to leadership, and what makes leading an organization like U.S. Ski & Snowboard so unique.

Sophie, thanks so much for being here. It's great to have you on the podcast.

[00:01:44] Sophie Goldschmidt: Yeah, pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:47] Roy Notowitz: So can you take us back to the beginning and tell us about what first drew you into the business of sport and how that evolved into the career that you've built?

[00:01:58] Sophie Goldschmidt: Yeah. So I grew up across the pond.

You might be able to tell from my accent. So I was born in the UK, went to junior high and high school over there, and was pretty obsessed with tennis. So I've always been a sports nut, but tennis became just a huge part of my life, and that's what brought me really to the US for the first time. I came to college at Baylor University on a tennis scholarship, and that really sort of opened my eyes to the sports world and industry.

Went on to do a master's, and then got my chance to enter the sports marketing business, and have had some fantastic roles. I've been super lucky with the opportunities that have come up and have worked now in a wide variety of sports, different types of organizations for teams, leagues, other properties, now working for a national governing body here at U.S. Ski & Snowboard.

[00:02:50] Roy Notowitz: So what was your first meaningful break, or what was the opportunity that launched you into this industry?

[00:02:56] Sophie Goldschmidt: When I was doing my master's, I had to do an internship as part of that program, and I very luckily got an internship at Adidas or Adidas, as we would say in Europe. And while I was there, a job opened up, and I was showing enough commitment and hard work and was very passionate about this area, and so I got the opportunity to have a dream job, quite frankly, coming out of college. And so that's what got me on this path

[00:03:25] Roy Notowitz: For our listeners who might not be as familiar with U.S. Ski & Snowboard, can you share an overview of the important work that you and your team do?

[00:03:33] Sophie Goldschmidt: Yeah. So we're what you call a national governing body, which means we have the responsibility to oversee 12 different sports on skis and snowboards across the US, and that means looking after the training programs and competitive programming for all of the best athletes that the US has in our sports, right down to the grassroots, and working with clubs and coaches and volunteers to build that ecosystem at the base.

So it's a very virtuous circle, and we are a not-for-profit, so everything that we make goes back into our sports and programs. We fully fund just over 240 athletes across our 12 sports, and within each sport there is multiple disciplines. So for example, we have alpine racing, which includes downhill, super giant slalom, and slalom.

We have cross-country, which has various disciplines. We have ski jumping. We have moguls. We have aerials. We have freeski. We have various disciplines within snowboarding. We have the para versions of our sports as well in cross-country, alpine, biathlon, and snowboarding as well. So we have a very broad mix of sports, and while they all have some very specific differences, there's a lot more commonality and shared learnings and best practices that can be cross-pollinated across our different disciplines.

And then, like I said, we're also responsible for generating the next development pipeline of talent, and that starts at the most grassroots level. You want people to have a great experience when you're putting on skis or a snowboard for the first time, because the more people that are engaged in our sports, ideally on the snow, but even if you're engaging through watching on social or broadcast, that just helps to build the ecosystem, and ultimately the more people we have engaged and participating, the more talent we have in the pipeline, and that leads to hopefully more and growing success at the elite side.

We're sometimes described as the most complex smaller-sized business really in the world. We have so many different facets to our organization. And despite being a not-for-profit, we want to be very commercially minded and incredibly professional as well, so we have a business that drives commercial partnerships and broadcasting rights and licensing and other new business opportunities.

And then we're fortunate to also have a foundation and some very generous supporters that also invest in our sports and athletes that allow them to achieve their dreams.

[00:06:05] Roy Notowitz: So you have a lot of different constituents, stakeholders, and people that you're serving. I'm curious, how does that play into the way that you've structured or built your organization?

[00:06:15] Sophie Goldschmidt: It's a very complex stakeholder matrix, but actually it's a real pleasure for me to work with our different stakeholders. I've never had a group of sports where people are so in it for the right reasons and really truly care about the athletes and our sports and the values and getting people engaged in outdoors and being active.

It's the least political role I've had, and actually, we've been empowered to be really entrepreneurial and to think out of the box because we sit in a very competitive industry and sector, and sportainment, as we call it now, you're competing with so many other things to get attention and drive kind of interest and fandom and participation.

So it's great that we're able to operate that way. We've got to punch above our weight. We're clearly not the NFL or NBA, so we need to think out the box and, and try new things and keep evolving. In my mind, if you're not moving forward and thinking progressively in a very focused way, then you're moving backwards.

So for me, I love the fact that I've got the business side of the organization and then the sports side, because it's quite unusual for an NGB to be so responsible for the athletic side. In a lot of these Olympic or other professional sports, they're playing for a pro team, or they are an independent contractor, like in tennis and golf.

Whereas in snow sports, year-round you're competing for your national team, and we have a World Cup series of events, which is like a Formula One series or the ATP or PGA Tour, where the athletes play week in, week out, and for us, they're participating, they're ski racing, competing in all the different disciplines.

And then you have the Olympics and Paralympics every four years, which is when you get a lot of extra profile and notice. But for us, week in, week out, our athletes are trying to be the best they can be. And if we're doing a good job there, then hopefully that will lead to success at an Olympic and Paralympic Games as well.

[00:08:11] Roy Notowitz: U.S. Ski & Snowboard has more than doubled in size since you've arrived, growing to over seventy million in revenue. What was your vision coming in, and how has that strategy come to life or come to fruition?

[00:08:25] Sophie Goldschmidt: Yeah. So we've had a really strong run, and look, that's thanks to an amazing team, both my executive team, but throughout the organization and our other partners.

Our athletes are our most important partners, and working with our clubs and commercial partners and broadcasters is a true team effort to see kind of the momentum and growth that we have seen. But yeah, super exciting, and I feel like in many ways we're only just getting going. But coming into this role, I wasn't hired for my skiing or snowboarding ability.

I think when people see me on skis, they're like, "I thought you worked for the U.S. Ski & Snowboard team. You can hardly ski." No, I'm a very average skier. I love it, but I was hired and I thought the opportunity was to innovate the brand and commercial proposition to make us more fit for purpose and to drive more engagement.

We control a lot within our ecosystem, so we actually have a lot of flexibility as to how we can work with different brands and other partners, and I think that actually makes us quite unique. Evolving that thinking and strategy, combined with adding a lot more events in the US, so we've tripled the number of events that we now have in the US at a World Cup level.

So we now have major moments in the US when fans can tune in or come and watch, rather than just being able to follow us in the middle of the night with broadcasts coming in from Europe. Having big events here where athletes have an opportunity to compete, home field advantage is real. We also get more starts when we have events here.

It allows fans to engage with us. It allows broadcasters to air us in more prime time slots. Our partners can activate. We can offer incredible VIP experiences. So that was also a catalyst to some of the change. And then I think just culturally, we've tried to really just keep raising the standards. Our athletes deserve the best of the best.

We need to think that way if we're going to optimize our potential. And so having an even more sort of progressive, innovative mindset of how we partner with our athletes, the coaches that we're hiring, how we're developing our people, the training opportunities that we're giving them. So I think that cultural piece has been really important for the staff and for the athletes too.

I think it's just, it's an even more positive, sort of nurturing and high-performance environment than we've had in the past.

[00:10:49] Roy Notowitz: That's amazing. You talked about being able to work in different or unique ways. Can you elaborate more on what that looks like from the athlete perspective or from the sponsorship side of things?

[00:11:02] Sophie Goldschmidt: With the sponsorship side, we've looked a lot at how we can utilize content in different ways. Content is king in this day and age. How we can innovate on social. What are the different types of themes of campaigns that we can come up with? What's the behind-the-scenes access that we can give that no one else can give?

What are some of the core values of our sport that are very authentic and also on message with what society is demanding at the moment? So, for example, we launched about three years ago a women's leadership empowerment platform called Heroic, highlighting the "her" in heroic, at demonstrating through some incredible role models we've had.

Look, our men have done very well as well, but some of the women that we've had excelling in our sports have really transcended the sport, and we wanted to use that to get more women into coaching. The number of females coaching is much lower than we want it to be, and so what are the barriers that we need to remove to encourage more women to get into the coaching pipeline?

So that's an example of something we innovated around. We launched several new documentary series last year. We came out with our version of Drive to Survive called On The Edge, which was shown by ESPN and Disney globally, which was a huge success, and it sort of went behind the curtains on alpine ski racing globally, focusing on the US athletes, but also we thought it was really important to tell the global story.

So that was also a first for us, along with another couple of similar projects that we did as well. So yeah, those are some of the ideas that we've been able to bring to fruition, but we're all about ideas. Ideas find money, and with money, we can invest in more. I mean, the beauty of my role is we're not investing to sort of make others wealthy or shareholders to get dividends.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, by the way. But when someone's investing in us, the vast majority of it is going into helping athletes to get better and achieve their dreams.

[00:13:01] Roy Notowitz: As you were implementing that strategy, was there anything that proved harder than you expected?

[00:13:08] Sophie Goldschmidt: Yeah, look, there's always challenges along the way.

Hopefully momentum continues, and you're heading in the right direction, and you therefore are taking on more responsibilities, have more partners, have more stakeholders. Look, experience helps, but the reality is it doesn't get any easier. You have either a bigger spotlight or bigger area of responsibility, and the problems are more difficult to solve.

But it's been really refreshing and, to be honest, made it so enjoyable, the fact that our community was really open-minded to change and knowing that same old doesn't get you to the next level. And in sports, change is often really hard. And I think snow sports, especially some of our sports, Alpine or maybe cross-country, which is seen as more traditional, people are like, "Good luck changing anything there. Nothing's changed in those sports."

But actually, that wasn't the case. I think they've really embraced giving it a go, and we had some quick wins early on, and that built momentum, and then people have confidence, and they become more sort of open-minded to what is possible. So that's been really rewarding.

And once you get a bit of momentum, it's amazing the snowball effect and how it can just continue to sort of accelerate, and you can evolve and make an even bigger impact than you maybe imagined. So yeah, look, I-- like I mentioned, I feel like we are only getting going. I'm more bullish than ever on the upside and opportunities across these sports, and I think we've got a lot of tailwinds.

Yes, there's some major challenges, but I think outdoor adventure lifestyle, I mean, these are all areas that are booming. Our athletes becoming more well-known. They're cool. They're people that folks want to be connected with. They have relevancy. They should all be making a lot more prize money, but the fact that they're not set for life and earning tens of millions of dollars means that they maybe are a bit more well-rounded.

They often have potentially a job on the side or they're studying and, yeah, really trying to utilize that in the best way possible to benefit our mission has been a big focus. But the work never stops. But that's how I like it. I like being busy. I'd much rather be in a position where there's too many opportunities and kind of the challenge is trying to figure out what to focus on than, than not having enough.

[00:15:34] Roy Notowitz: A lot of people ask me, "What exactly do you do at Noto Group?" We partner with entrepreneurs, founders, executives, investors, and boards to help them build high-performance leadership teams that excel and endure. We've had the privilege of working with more than 250 leading brands, from early-stage innovators to global icons, and we've placed hundreds of executives along the way.

As a certified B Corp since 2013 and proud 1% for the Planet member, it always starts with your mission and values and finding leaders who can bring those to life. If you're curious, you can find out more by visiting our website, notogroup.com. Thanks, and now let's get back to our episode.

When you look at the growth that you've achieved and capabilities that you've developed within the organization, what role has talent played?

[00:16:27] Sophie Goldschmidt: Yeah, I mean, talent is everything for us. The two most important aspects of my role in our organization are our athletes and the staff that support them and help us to achieve our objectives and our mission.

And to me, that just becomes more and more apparent every day. And the athletes can't be their best selves without the talent and the team doing the work and being their best selves to help optimize that talent. So yeah, I spend a lot of time thinking about it, work very closely with an amazing executive team, but also more broadly with all sorts of folks across the organization, because you never know who's going to come up with the next great idea or who's dealing with a situation where you can help or they can help you.

So I try to be very non-hierarchical and really have that sort of collaborative spirit across all levels within the organization. But we made quite a few changes when I started. To me, it was sort of the balance... You definitely need that experience. You want to learn from the past. That knowledge is absolutely critical, but you also need new thinking, and you need people that have come from different environments, are going to challenge in a different way, see things in a different way.

And when you get the balance of both, I think that's when the magic can really happen. We had quite a lot of folks who'd been here a long time, and so finding that shift was really key. And look, that's a continual evolution, and now going into this season and moving forward, we're financially in a place where we can really think much more about professional development, which I think is absolutely critical.

We've got to keep raising the bar with our capability and capacity, and our staff are wired that way. A lot of them are very curious and motivated to better themselves and add different skill sets, and we owe it to them to kind of think that way too, and hopefully help them to do that.

[00:18:19] Roy Notowitz: Coming into U.S. Ski & Snowboard, you had a lot of experience with other sports organizations. What did you take from those past experiences that you applied, and what were some of the differences that you've had to navigate within this organization?

[00:18:40] Sophie Goldschmidt: Yeah, I mean, for me, if I start with the differences, that was more on the sort of the technical sporting side.

I feel it's the right thing to do, and quite frankly, I enjoy really getting under the hood of these sports and understanding technically what it takes and what are the different training methods and the different facilities we need and how the calendar works, and the strength and conditioning training and the mental and, and all of that.

So that was by far my biggest learning curve, was getting to understand that aspect of our sports, combined with getting to know all the key stakeholder groups and how we can help them, how they can help us, and just the ecosystem within snow sports. And I love building relationships. I love spending time with people.

I get my energy from people. So again, that was something that I really enjoyed, but was absolutely critical. So those were sort of the biggest differences. And it's interesting, everyone always asks about the differences, but to me the biggest learning is there's many more similarities between our 12 sports, but also between our sports and tennis or the NBA or rugby or surfing or golf and all these other sports I've worked in.

Everyone focuses on the differences, but there's many more commonality, and that's where I felt I could lean into my strengths and experiences. What are these trends and patterns or situations I've been in where I've handled them well or not, but I've learned from that, and I'm going to apply those learnings better now and make better decisions, or borrow ideas, steal ideas that have worked in the past.

And so I think there was a lot of very relevant experience which happens on a daily basis. It may not be directly the same, but it's like, hang on, I had a similar situation with a coach or an athlete, and I remember how this personality reacted or dealing with a partner, and yeah, that was a challenge. We had an event canceled, and this is how we made good on it.

So I think tapping into that prior experience, and I think with experience, one of the, the key things to really utilize it is you've got to create space so you can see when you are in a similar situation or that this is a really key decision and you need to take more time and carve out the right time to really think through and tap into those learnings so that you can make the best decision.

I mean, we have, you know, important decisions to make on a regular basis, especially when you're a CEO, but everyone does. But there's a handful that are super critical during a year that can really change kind of the trajectory, and often it's figuring out which are those decisions. Because everything seems quite urgent and may be important, but what's really important?

What's really going to move the needle? So for me, it's finding the space to make sure you're noticing those moments, and then using your prior experience to tap into making the best decision. So that's something hopefully with each role you get better at, but look, I've got a long way to go and still make plenty of mistakes.

[00:21:36] Roy Notowitz: You lead an organization that's surrounded by elite athletes and coaches, and I'm curious, what, if anything, has that environment taught you about developing leaders and high-performance teams?

[00:21:51] Sophie Goldschmidt: Yeah, I think it's fascinating. There's definitely themes that you see in the best of the best. While they're all individuals and have different personalities and characteristics as well, but look, a lot of it is what you would expect.

Their incredible focus, determination, work ethic, I think ability to deal with failure and move on quite quickly. While it pains them more than anyone else often, it drives them, and they can move on to what's possible. I think they demand a lot, and they've earned the right. They're often some of the most challenging folks that you deal with, but in a very sort of rational, thoughtful way.

And so yeah, and I think there's a lot of similarities between sort of business leadership and sports leadership, and I think it also goes back to just key personality characteristics around sort of curiosity, having an eagerness and hunger to continue to push and evolve. I think being a really good listener, taking feedback, not being afraid to ask for help, and constantly wanting to learn and evolve, and you see that in spades with, quite frankly, most of our athletes.

But it's extra obvious in the great ones, and I've seen that from the best leaders that I've been around and worked for as well. Yeah, a lot of commonality there as well.

[00:23:15] Roy Notowitz: So what do you look for in a leader when you're hiring for your team?

[00:23:20] Sophie Goldschmidt: Yeah. So I have an amazing head of people, and he oversees a couple of other areas too, and we talk a lot about key hires, but all our hiring, what's the philosophy around that?

And look, I hope it's a requisite that people have the relevant experience, and whether it's technical skills or just have been in certain roles long enough to really understand how those business operations really work. So assuming someone ticks all those boxes, then the most important thing for me, and it becomes more important with every hire I make, is attitude.

And what's going to gel with my leadership style, but also making sure that I'm not just hiring people like me. I want folks that are going to complement me and our team so that we're making sure we're balancing out sort of strengths and weaknesses, and we've got different views and opinions, so that's really key to me.

But attitude-wise, I like high-energy people. I like people that are very solution-oriented, that will challenge and bring up issues, but are willing to put themselves out there and suggest ways that we might be able to overcome certain situations. I like people that are innovative and think out of the box because I think in competitive elite sport and in our sector, if you're not thinking that way, you're going backwards.

And then people that don't take themselves too seriously because you do go through stressful, tough moments, and you want people to just see the joy in working together and achieving something as a team. And so I think having that self-awareness of when you've got to lean in and double down and things are tough, but when you can step back and have fun and be jovial and build that camaraderie, because I think teams are much more successful and quite frankly, it's much more fun when you've got that attitude and you want people in it for the long run.

And if they're not enjoying it some of the time, then they're probably not going to stick with you for very long. And I think with that teamwork and enjoyment often comes sort of the trust and respect and getting to know people as a business partner, but also as a human. So those are the key ingredients for me.

[00:25:25] Roy Notowitz: So I have an opportunity coming up to speak to some sports marketing classes at the university level, and I'm curious, what advice do you have for students and emerging leaders interested in developing a career in sports?

[00:25:43] Sophie Goldschmidt: The good news and the bad news. So I'll start with the bad news. The bad news is it's an incredibly competitive sector. There's so many people that love sport, and so therefore they want to get into it and work in it. So there's-- I don't know the stats, Roy, you would know better than I, but the number of people going for every job is significant.

And that's the same in some other sectors too. But sports is incredibly competitive and booming at the moment. Having said that, it's also a growing sector, so there's more opportunities than ever before. AI is helping sports in many ways, but sports is often referred to as the sort of the last bastion of live entertainment.

And people want to engage with live experiences and connecting in person with communities. And, you know, the content, the way these different sports and events are broadcast is just engaging for folks. So it's, yes, it's tough, it's competitive, but it's growing. And there's a lot of sectors that aren't growing.

So I would encourage someone to get into this sector not only because I've loved it, but I think it is a great career move. But I think you need to be incredibly open-minded. Look, getting into the workforce for the first time in any sector requires a lot of resilience, requires you to be open to doing all sorts of different things just to get on the ladder.

Certainly not a linear path. If you want to get into marketing, but there's an event opportunity or there's a chance to learn from someone in sales, I think it's about getting as much experience as you can, surrounding yourself with as many, hopefully great people, but building strong relationships so that you're top of mind when these opportunities come up.

I've never really known what my next job is going to be or what I wanted it to be, which is unusual for me because I'm a very type A person where everything is planned in my life. But actually, I think it's held me in really good stead because it means I've been more open-minded to different opportunities, and I think it would have been more challenging and I wouldn't have had all those experiences.

So I think actually being really flexible and not saying, "I only want to work in this sport," or, "I only want to work in this department." When you're young, you've just got to get the experience. You've got to roll your sleeves up. You've got to work incredibly hard. You've got to be the first there, the last to leave.

You've got to be great at building relationships and be really curious, and then good things are more likely to happen. But I think be willing to take some risks, maybe move to a city that you don't necessarily want to be in. But if it's for the right opportunity, then yeah, it's going to get you further down the path to achieving something else.

So that's some of the advice I would give.

[00:28:10] Roy Notowitz: That's great. As you think about the future of your organization and the sport, what are you most excited about?

[00:28:18] Sophie Goldschmidt: Just, yeah, in general about the growth potential on and off the snow. So I if I look at on the snow, which is, in my mind, more the athletic and participation side, our sports are growing, our athletes are getting better, and yet there's still many people in the US and around the world that haven't experienced them or haven't really watched them.

So I think the storytelling and bringing our sports and amazing role models to more people really excites me because I know when we open that door, people embrace it. So I think the sky's the limit there, and whether it's through events, whether it's through content, whether it's through different partnerships, I really think we can bring our sports and athletes to more people.

And we have a North Star in seven and a half year's time with a home Winter Games here in Utah, which is a runway that we're not going to have again for a while. So between sort of LA and then Utah in '34, what an opportunity to really take our sports to the next level. And then look, that interest and growth and kind of excitement really helps us on the off-snow side, which is more the business side.

We're very ambitious about how we can continue to grow. And look, it takes more than money to have success, but there is a direct link. When you can invest into more programs, support more athletes, invest at an earlier age, it will lead to more success if you've got the right culture and sort of leadership structure.

I strongly believe that's the case. And so on the commercial and the foundation side, continuing to innovate, continuing to think out of the box. How can we offer more value than others? How can we be a one-stop shop to be also really user-friendly? How can we serve as partners better than anyone else in the world?

So I think driving that mindset will hopefully continue to stimulate the sort of commercial and business growth. So that's what excites me and what we're focused on on a daily basis.

[00:30:16] Roy Notowitz: That's amazing. That's great. Thanks for all your great insights and for taking time to be on the podcast. I really appreciate it.

I know how busy you are, and I look forward to seeing you in Park City for our annual CEO Summit in February. And hopefully, we can get some runs in.

[00:30:33] Sophie Goldschmidt: Yeah. Thank you. Look, I really enjoy that.

[00:30:37] Roy Notowitz: Thanks for tuning in to How I Hire. Visit howihire.com for more details about the show and all of our past episodes.

How I Hire is created by Noto Group Executive Search. To find out more about us, visit notogroup.com. You can also sign up for our monthly email job alert newsletter there and find additional job search strategy and hiring content on our resources page. This podcast was produced by Anna McClain. To learn more about her and her team's work, visit aomcclain.com.