159. Managing and Mentoring With BMO Director of North American Sponsorships Amy C. Potter

159. Managing and Mentoring With BMO Director of North American Sponsorships Amy C. Potter

 

 

Introducing Amy C. Potter

Today I’m talking to BMO Director of North American Sponsorships Amy C. Potter about managing and mentoring.

Her Career Journey

Amy studied marketing as an undergrad at George Mason University. Her first job was as a marketing coordinator for Comcast SportsNet in DC before moving to the University of Virginia, where she became the Director of Sales & Marketing. She went on to work with the University of Maryland and then later Northwestern University. She is currently the Director of North American Sponsorship at BMO Financial Group and is based in Chicago where she works with properties across the country, including NBA, NHL, and MLS teams. She is a founding member and the former president of the Chicago chapter of Women in Sports and Entertainment (WISE).

Managing and Mentoring

Amy is committed to managing her team members on an individual basis, allowing each to bring their strengths to the job. She understands that as a manager, she can create opportunities that fit best for each employee, like a walk-and-talk check-in meeting over coffee. She’s also committed to mentoring other women and maintaining an open dialogue around salaries and negotiations. This led her to found the Chicago chapter of WISE as a way of creating a place for women to help one another navigate the historically-male field of business in sports. 

Inside this episode:

  • Amy explains the real function of marketing within sports and the many opportunities she’s had throughout her career on both the properties and brand sides of the equation. Many of her experiences from ten or more years ago have paid off in her current roles in ways that she could not have anticipated at the time.
  • In her approach, there’s a difference between a manager, a leader, and a coach. Many of her practices have been shaped through trial and error, but Amy’s learned that one of the most important steps is hiring a person that’s the right fit for team culture. 
  • Amy finds her individual people’s individual strengths and works from there, rather than trying to make them fit into a mold that’s not right for them. This allows more voices to come to the table, which builds more diverse teams.
  • She encourages women to ask their friends, family, and coworkers for feedback on a skill they do very well, recognizing that women often minimize their own abilities by dismissing them as just something they do every day.
  • Amy records her accomplishments in a folder called “Wins” in order to have something concrete to look back on either when she’s asked for her progress over the past year or just feeling like she’s not completing her to-do list.

Resources

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