Mary Wittenberg
Lecturer, Sports Management; President, NJ/NY Gotham FC
Mary Wittenberg, a long time advocate of women athletes, recently joined start-up League One Volley Ball (LOVB) as President, Pro to launch and develop a commercially sustainable, professional volleyball league in the USA LOVB is re-imagining the future of volleyball by building a pro league “community up,” with a foundation of junior volleyball clubs across the nation.
Mary most recently served as President, Commercial of EF Education First Pro Cycling, a men's World Tour/Tour de France cycling team with an ambition to "open the peloton" to welcome everyone to explore the world through cycling. Beyond business development and commercial, Mary led EF’s initiative to start three co-ed cycling teams at TCU and HBCU colleges and struck an innovative partnership adding a women’s pro team to EF Pro Cycling beginning in 2022.
Prior to that, Mary was founding CEO of Richard Branson's Virgin Sports, an active lifestyle company dedicated to revolutionizing health and wellness through unique participatory fitness events. Mary and her team developed and introduced an innovative "festival of sport" product in the UK and US.
Mary followed her dream to work in sports after a decade as a corporate lawyer. After joining New York Road Runners, she became the first woman President and CEO of NYRR and Race Director of the TCS New York City Marathon. Mary led the organization’s transformation from a local running club to the premier community running organization. Mary and team evolved a hybrid business model that leveraged commercial revenues from running events to support the delivery of free-running programs throughout New York City while growing the marathon to the largest in the world (over 50,000 runners from 100+ countries).
Mary teaches Leadership in Sports Management.