Vice President, Executive Recruiter – Sports Practice

Key Responsibilities

• Support the full executive search process across sports practice mandates – including candidate sourcing and screening, interview coordination, offer support, and onboarding logistics – ensuring seamless execution from brief to placement.
• Proactively cultivate and maintain a deep, curated pipeline of senior sports business executives – including GMs, CMOs, COOs, CROs, and other C-suite and VP-level leaders – that WME can draw on to present to clients quickly and credibly.
• Support trusted relationships with key decision-makers – including owners, presidents, CHROs, and board members – at sports franchises, leagues, and adjacent organizations to generate and retain client engagements.
• Draft and refine job descriptions for open mandates in partnership with clients; conduct and maintain compensation benchmarking and market intelligence across sports business roles to inform both candidate positioning and client advisory.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in HR, talent acquisition, or executive recruitment – ideally with direct exposure to the team, league, or sports property environment (e.g., in-house HR or recruiting at a professional franchise, league office, or major sports property), with a meaningful portion focused on sports business, sports media, or adjacent industries.
• Strong understanding of how sports organizations hire – including org structures, comp norms, title conventions, and the decision-making dynamics between ownership, front office leadership, and HR.
• Deep existing network across sports ownership groups, front offices, leagues, and sports media – with relationships that translate directly into candidate pipeline and client opportunity.
• Highly organized and process-driven – comfortable managing multiple active searches simultaneously, tracking progress meticulously, and communicating clearly with both candidates and client contacts.
• Prior experience at a recognized executive search firm with a sports or entertainment vertical, or in-house HR/people operations experience at a major sports property or organization (e.g., MLSE, AEG, a professional league, or similar).
• Familiarity with CRM and ATS platforms (e.g., Cluen/Encore, LinkedIn Recruiter) and comfort building and maintaining structured pipeline tracking systems.
• Comfort operating in a startup-within-a-company environment – building process and structure while simultaneously executing at a high level.
• Experience supporting diversity and inclusion hiring initiatives, succession planning, or organizational design conversations within sports or entertainment contexts.

Qualifications

• We are fueled by persistence, adapting and seeking solutions in the face of challenges.
• We support and elevate diverse voices, promoting equity and Inclusion within our company, industries and community.
• We operate with a spirit of Entrepreneurialism, a willingness to take risks and mindset that is built to disrupt.
• We rely on Collaboration across our network to power culture and unite people around the world.
• We hold ourselves to the highest standards of Excellence in every aspect of our work, including how we interact with one another, our clients and our partners.

Benefits

• Base rate: $150,000 annually (minimum will not fall below the applicable state/local minimum salary thresholds)
• Maximum: $200,000 annually