Adam Neuman

Adam Neuman serves as Chief of Staff and Special Advisor to the President of the Baltimore Ravens. Neuman serves as strategic counsel and manages all administrative, operational, financial and legal activities for the President.

Previously, Neuman served the Big Ten Conference as Chief of Staff, Strategy and Operations & Deputy General Counsel as a member of the conference's Senior Leadership Team. Neuman served as a strategic aide to both the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors (COP/C) and the Big Ten Conference Commissioner in creating a movement of leadership in sports, academics, and social responsibility throughout intercollegiate sports. Neuman joined Big Ten Conference in January 2020 and played a strategic role in helping the conference navigate the most complex times in its 125-year history by assuming a leadership role in helping the conference navigate a global health pandemic. Neuman helped establish the Taskforce for Emerging Infectious Diseases and played a key role in the negotiations and implementation of a comprehensive COVID-19 testing program to help student-athletes, coaches, and staff return to competition safely.

Alongside the General Counsel, Neuman assisted and supported the Conference on a broad range of legal, financial, strategic, compliance, HR, PR, and general management issues, including establishing, developing, leading, and managing the Conference’s legal department, ensuring that the Conference maintains the legal resources and expertise necessary to meet its needs, managing outside counsel, oversight of government affairs and risk management, drafting, reviewing and revising Conference policies, and developing strategies for litigation. Neuman’s role in the conference leadership team was particularly noteworthy amid the remarkable additions of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Southern California (USC), (expanding the conference to 16 institutions in August of 2024) in conference expansion and the conference’s recent record-breaking media rights deal with the linear networks CBS, NBC, FOX and the direct-to-consumer streaming platform, Peacock. “From the first day that I met Adam, it was clear that he had a special gift,” Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren told The Athletic. “His work ethic is incredible. He’s very, very mentally tough. He’s smart. He can handle a wide range of issues to deal with. His legal background has been incredible." The seven-year media rights agreements will begin July 1, 2023, and provide fans with unprecedented access and Big Ten football, women’s and men’s basketball, and Olympic sports student-athletes with greater exposure than any other collegiate sports conference in history. Beginning in the fall of 2023, Big Ten football will dominate Saturdays, on the largest broadcast platforms from morning to night, with FOX at Noon ET, CBS at 3:30 p.m. ET and NBC in primetime. With the addition of UCLA and USC in August 2024, the conference, its student-athletes, and member institutions will reach the broadest audience in the country, coast-to-coast, including the top three media markets in the country in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. These landmark media rights agreements are the most comprehensive and lucrative in all college sports and further strengthen the tradition and power of the Big Ten Conference.

Neuman helped inspire the conference to provide support for the whole student-athlete, leading the development of the Mental Health & Wellness Cabinet. He is also one of pioneers of the Equality Coalition, establishing a conference collective dedicated to helping student-athletes constructively and collectively recognize and combat racism and hate in our society. In July of 2022, Neuman helped lead a delegation of student-athletes and administrators from its member institutions to Selma and Montgomery, Alabama, for an immersive experience entitled: Big Life Series: Selma to Montgomery. The pilgrimage to one of the key centers of the civil rights movement was highlighted by a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, which is the site of the 1965 Bloody Sunday attack.

His previous legal experience was with Simpson Thacher and Bartlett LLP as a corporate associate in their capital markets division where he represented clients in a broad range of securities offerings as both issuer’s and underwriter’s counsel including tie-outs and review of Fortune 500 subsidiary disclosures in advance of initial public offerings.

Prior, Neuman served as the lead speechwriter for the president of Yeshiva University supporting President Richard M. Joel in wide-ranging strategic and operational needs, including driving seamless communications, strategic planning, and personnel management. Neuman frequently collaborated with the President to develop and define a focused organizational vision and was responsible for drafting major speeches and lectures aligned with immediate and long-term goals.

Neuman was recognized in The Athletic's inaugural College Sports 40 Under 40 featuring top young coaches, players, executives, and influencers at the age of 32. He is a member of the Philanthropy Committee for the Sports Lawyers Association, the Sports Law Committee for the New York City Bar Association, the National Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA), and the Anti-Defamation League’s Glass Leadership Institute. Neuman is a licensed attorney with the State Bar of Illinois, New York, the District of Columbia, and the Supreme Court of the United States.