Grant Son
Senior Lecturer, Sports Management
Grant Son is a full-time faculty member at Columbia University, teaching graduate-level courses in the discipline of Sports Management and Entrepreneurship.
Prior to joining the faculty at Columbia in January 2018, Son taught Entrepreneurship and Sports Marketing courses at Columbia Business School and the Yale School of Management. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia Business School. Son's applied research includes serving as co-author of a Harvard Business School case study on R/GA and the LA Dodgers on the launch of the Global Sports Venture Studio.
In addition, Son serves as CEO of Greater Good Ventures, a firm he founded in 2009 to serve nonprofits, charities and academic institutions; and he expanded to include startups, growth ventures and established corporations. Significant engagements include Cornell University, HockeyTech, Sports195 and Sequel Studios.
As CEO, Son grew a previous startup into a top-10 sports website acquired by ESPN. His professional experience includes over 30 years of marketing, e-commerce and digital media work at iconic brands including the NFL, Sports Illustrated and CBS, where he has acquired over 70 million paid subscribers, generated sales revenue of over $4.2 billion and managed a P&L of $230 million.
Son is an avid athlete, coach and sports fan. He has over 20 years of experience coaching soccer and tennis, runs three miles a day and has attended every major sporting event, including six Super Bowls, World Cup Soccer, the World Series, the NBA Finals, the Stanley Cup Finals, championship boxing and two Olympics.
Education
- M.B.A., Columbia University
- B.A., University of Pennsylvania
Courses
- Fall 2020: Sports Entrepreneurship & Innovation
- Fall 2020: Sports Marketing
- Fall 2020: Supervised Research Project: FC Bayern Munich
- Spring 2021: Sports Entrepreneurship & Innovation
- Spring 2021: Supervised Research Project
Publications
- R/GA: Corporate Venture Studio vs. Accelerator (Harvard Business School Publishing, 2019), case study with Andy Wu
- R/GA: Corporate Venture Studio vs. Accelerator (Harvard Business School Publishing, 2020), teaching note with Andy Wu