Maura McGreevy on the Power of Connection and the Art of Endurance

Mixing Board Studio Session

Maura McGreevy is the Chief Communications Officer at Endeavor, a global sports and entertainment company. In this role, she oversees corporate communications for the entire Endeavor network of companies across areas including public relations, events and hospitality, internal communications, social and creative.

She was formerly SVP communications for Endeavor, with a focus on subsidiaries including IMG and 160over90. Prior to joining IMG in 2014, McGreevy served as Communications Director at Droga5, an award-winning global creative agency. Previously, McGreevy spent three and a half years at Thomson Reuters helping build a centralized global communications function, serving most recently as the Chief Marketing Officer’s Chief of Staff. McGreevy lives in Morristown, NJ with her husband and daughter, graduated summa cum laude from Boston University, and proudly hails from Moscow, Idaho. 

In this Studio Session, Maura and Mixing Board Founder Sean Garrett talk about the importance of saying no in the “incoming call” business, having grace for yourself on the days when it's impossible to be proactive, building endurance, and the joy of being a thoughtful connector.

SG: What are you doing these days Maura and how did you find yourself in this insane  (my words not yours!) job?

MM: I'm currently the Chief Communications Officer at Endeavor. Approximately 10,000 employees in 40 countries. I like to talk about Endeavor as a solar system. To the degree that Endeavor, the parent company, is the sun, there are a lot of unique planets in the system, including WME, one of the world's leading entertainment agencies; IMG, a leader sports operations and advisory, event management, media production and distribution, and brand licensing; a cultural marketing agency called 160over90; a premium hospitality business called On Location… the list goes on. And most recently we added a new public company called TKO, which brought together UFC and WWE. 

SG: And you sit at the center of it all as the all-knowing being?

MM: I wouldn't go that far. It's too large of a company to actually know everything, despite being here nearly 10 years now. We are constantly growing and changing. Luckily, as a centralized comms team that serves the entire company, we have someone wired into every element of the business. 

SG: I'd imagine this is a pretty chill job? 

MM: (Laughs) So chill. One of the things I’ve found unique and remarkable about this place is we keep a lot of the corporate work in house. We are a relatively small but mighty team, and we really try to keep as much of the knowledge and the effort in the building. That being said, Brunswick and specifically Matt Levine have been exceptional partners on all our financial communications. Especially over the last year in my new role, and notably with the creation of TKO… I could not have done it without them. But there is truly never, ever a dull day at this company. 

SG: What is the breadth of things that you might experience in a day/week? What is the full spread? 

MM: Going back to the solar system analogy, I travel constantly between the planets. When I think about just this year so far: we announced an incredible $5 billion deal for WWE with Netflix. My team produced our annual Endeavor lounge at the Super Bowl to entertain clients and partners, convene panel discussions and events, and host a bunch of media over the course of three days–which was bigger and better than ever in Vegas with a UFC Fight Night in the mix as well. We announced a landmark media rights deal our IMG and WME Sports teams negotiated for the NCAA with ESPN. We managed hundreds of media in Los Angeles for Frieze Los Angeles and our inaugural LA Wine & Food event. We released our EDR and TKO FY and Q4 2023 earnings. We hired a new head of social recently and she has been ramping up all content across @endeavor and @tkogrp channels. The list goes on. 

SG: If you could zoom out to 30 years from now when you're looking back at this job, what are the moments you're going to remember like, "Holy cow, I cannot believe I did that." Or that, "I lived in that moment." Or, "Wow, I managed that situation."

MM: Before I came here, I ran communications for a top advertising agency called Droga5. WME took a significant minority stake in Droga5 in 2013, and I was introduced to the man who would later become my boss at Endeavor: Christian Muirhead. 

My mom would tell you that from birth I wanted to “live in the world.” I have always been ambitious, and as I was thinking about what might be interesting as a next step after Droga5 I had a conversation with my brother Martin who basically said listen, if you want to work in the big leagues, that is the place to do it. These people are at the top of their field, they are extremely ambitious, and they're running a million miles an hour. No better prep for whatever comes next. He was absolutely right. 

A lot of what makes careers in communications really rich and fulfilling is developing muscles that you didn't know you had. Stretching yourself in ways that you didn't necessarily think possible or learning about things that you didn't even know existed. This job has absolutely paid dividends in that regard, in many more ways than one.

SG: What skill do you have now that you never thought you would attain?

MM: Before I came here, I didn’t really know how good I'd be in a crisis. I’m the eldest of four and have always been relatively steady in the pocket, but you never really know how that will translate when there’s a five alarm fire. Our company produces hundreds of live events, represents thousands of individuals, and is now public twice over with Endeavor and TKO… there is always something.  

I remind myself and my team that we are not saving lives. We work in sports and entertainment. Not losing sight of that is really important as you're navigating the days that are inevitably very stressful. 

SG: I've had some jobs that put me in weird and very cool situations. In the early part of my career, I thought I couldn’t appreciate the crazy stuff because I’m a professional. Later in my career I allowed myself to take in the crazy and appreciate it. Where are you on that spectrum?

MM: I like to joke that my job in communications has gotten sexier over time. I started in tech PR, then worked at a market research company primarily focused on supply chain and manufacturing research. I really had to dial for dollars with the media early in my career. But what a phenomenal experience that was, building the courage and the storytelling acumen to call major major publications and convince them to write about directional audio speakers and the supply chain journey of airplane parts (back in 2007 before these were topics du jour!).

There are other challenges now that come with being in a more of an “incoming call” business, but it is never lost on me that a girl from Idaho gets to be where I'm standing. I didn't grow up in these industries. I'm not from the coasts. To the degree that part of the role of a senior comms executive is not to buy your own hype – be it the company's own hype, your clients' or your executives' – my background has certainly provided some healthy perspective in how I've navigated that role.

SG: How do you use that Idaho grounding?

MM: No one in my life is enamored of the world that I work in. They just want me to be happy and challenged (and sleep more). They ground me on a daily basis.

We're in an election year now, and it was really interesting when Trump first ran for President because no one around me believed he could win. Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but we clearly underestimated a lot about the U.S. body politic. I found myself in so many situations in 2016 cautioning people: "Where I come from, this man is God."

It's just important to be aware that we're all telling ourselves a story. We have to be willing and able to be disagreed with. We have to understand that there are large swaths of people, on the largest and smallest issues of our time, that are seeing it through a completely different lens and experiencing it through a different life experience.

SG: You mentioned your early days in your career where you had to dial for dollars, which is a term that just sent shivers through my spine. Now you work at this place where you don't really need the attention. Instead you're managing that attention and making daily decisions on what you engage in and what you don't. You have untold opportunities, maybe even some great opportunities that you can't even get to because you're managing so much incoming stuff. In your seat, how do you think about that? How have you learned to manage the reactive and the proactive?

MM: Hopefully at least once a week there's a more proactive day. But this company moves so fast, you're lucky if you're just reacting to everything that's happening in real time. For a long time I beat myself up about that. There's this sense, especially as you ascend in your career, that your whole entire job is to be strategic and proactive. I had to have a real come-to-Jesus with myself about two-years ago to say, "That sounds good in theory, but it's not as easy to apply in reality at the place that I personally work."

The analogy I use is that you wake up and get dropped on a treadmill that's moving 1.5x faster than you can easily “walk and talk.” You build great muscles that way and you run faster than you ever have before. It's phenomenal training for the marathon that is any career. But it definitely requires a little bit of grace given to the days where it's just impossible to be more forward-looking and strategic. And certainly it also comes largely down to the incredible leadership team that I have assembled around me, and the people that work for them, sum total.

SG: Is strategy even possible in 2024 for a company like yours? Is it even possible to say, "By the end of the year we're going to be here. We're going to have these three big campaigns that are going to get us there, we're going to do the stuff, and we’re going to plant these flags." In other words, is it better just to go with the flow and have some basic filters that guide you?

MM: What you just said is a perfect articulation of exactly how I’ve found it is best to navigate: identify the filters that make sense for that business and/or timeframe, and then apply the filters to guide you. Be prepared for things to shift. 

This is not unique to us, it’s true of all companies of this size that have evolved so much. Endeavor has changed relatively significantly almost every year that I've been here. The place I work now is not the place that I joined. 

And as it relates to executive profile management, the way I judge our effectiveness is often what we say no to, versus yes. In a largely services business, we have to be especially thoughtful about how and when we choose to turn the attention to us.

SG: 10 years ago when you joined, social media was not at its infancy, but it was in a maybe nascent place. But it was a thing that anyone in media used every day. It also felt like it had more consequence, people took it way more seriously. If something bad happened and it got put up all over Twitter, that was a big crisis. Today, the speed that we operate – if you are the character on Monday, by Wednesday people have maybe forgotten about it. If you or your team sees something pop up in your world, is there a part of you that’s like, "You know what, just let it go. We can let this go." Whereas 10 years ago maybe it was like, “We got to jump on this thing. We got to go, we got to move. Call in the SWAT team." How has that evolved?

MM: It has evolved a lot. 

On rare occasions, our team will get called in to help a celebrity client who's facing an issue. If it’s social media outrage, the guidance is more often than not: do not engage. Do not respond. Unless you are entirely in the wrong or the news is wildly inaccurate or egregious, it is not worth it.

Related to our events business, we run an exceptional amount of live events around the world every year. So what happens if a ride fails, an artist shows up late, or a protest begins? It's been an interesting exercise, especially when every individual with a phone now has a platform and information travels with the speed of light – it can feel for those close to it like the end of the world.

We have to ask more questions from the jump. "Is this hurting sales?” “How, if at all, are our partners reacting?” “What tangible evidence and data do we have that this is negatively impacting our business?” Certainly the optics can have business implications, but in the short term at least, are we seeing any actual hit to the business? Or are people just looking to be outraged? More often than not, it's the latter. It’s about guiding the team and creating an emotional endurance among the group of people who on a fairly regular occurrence are seeing that Twitter post or getting that urgent request for comment and conditioning them to ask, "Is this really a crisis?"

SG: How are you approaching leveraging AI with your team that has to move fast but thoughtfully?  

MM: I really love to write. I also, like most, hate staring at a blank page. To the degree that AI can support all of us with the shitty first draft – I don't know why people wouldn't explore it. 

As one, now two, public companies, we have a lot of protections in place and a phenomenal CIO who has been really helpful in guiding us toward what we can engage with and what we can't. I encourage my team, within the guidelines, to test and learn to see what's possible.

Especially in those areas where you may need a new perspective or a bit of inspiration, like an event you host every year. “Invite this journalist to this event and tell them why it would be interesting for them.” What came back when we did that – just the way it was bulleted – was actually something we had never thought of doing before. It was so much clearer. 

I talk a lot about using the wisdom of crowds among our team. To the degree that you have access to a tool that provides that to the nth degree, – why wouldn't you take advantage of that if it makes you more succinct or clearer? Can it do all of the strategy, the bigger picture thinking, and determine the narrative? Probably not. But if you have a germ of an idea, you have a need, or you just are desperate for that inevitably shitty first draft, why wouldn't you avail yourself of that option? 

SG: You’ve earned your reputation for being great at your job while being a solid person. But you’re also the ultimate connector. I feel like every time someone's like, "Hey, how do you know that person?" I'm like, "Maura introduced me." Tell me about your networking muscle and how you apply that to your work? Because you're incredibly good at it. I see you in a meeting, you write down your action items on who you're going to introduce people to, and then you actually make it happen. And they are all really targeted leads. I mean you’ve introduced me to people who have had a huge influence on my life. Is that just your DNA or is that a skill that you've evolved over time?

MM: Nothing gives me greater joy than connecting good people to good people. In the most macro of terms, that's probably how I ended up in a job like this one. When someone doesn’t really understand what I do, I tell them I'm a salesperson. I sell stories and ideas. I really find such joy in that – I have a cool thing to tell you about or I have a really interesting person for you to meet. To the degree that it's fruitful for the individuals involved? Awesome.

I went to college to be a journalist and I think that was driven both by a deep love for writing and reading, but also a preternatural curiosity. I love to ask questions. I love to understand what makes people tick, and what they're interested in. Over time, you learn to filter, you get quicker at it. I can sit down with someone for 15 minutes and come away with a sense of a few people who might be helpful to them. It's something I've always really enjoyed doing. 

But it's very important not to overwhelm. There are people who are like, "I'll send you 20 people." Where do you even start with that? I focus on the most meaningful leads.

SG: Is this a skill that you can teach to people? Or they just have it or they don't?

MM: It's more enjoyable when it's nature versus nurture. There are people who do exactly what I just described, but yet somehow it feels like “networking”. It can feel more transactional. For me, it comes from a very organic, no strings attached place. I just want there to be more good people in the world who know each other. That’s a little harder to teach, but it can certainly be modeled. To the degree that meeting some cool, interesting person makes your life better or helps you advance your goals, what greater service can you provide to the people you care about?

SG: How would you have coached young Maura on this career journey?

MM: The thing I always say is be very thoughtful about who you'll be working directly for. Don't be overly enamored of the company, the CEO, or the people who, especially early in your career, are probably pretty far away from you. When you are just getting started, the person you work directly for has the most influence on your responsibilities, the autonomy you are given, and how much your work is getting seen by the people more senior to both of you. They’re the person who's the most in your day to day, who's teaching you the most, arguably when you have the most to learn.

My comms career has been a bit of a windy path if you rewind the tape all of the way, but one throughline has been working for people who I could learn a lot from, who I respected, who I knew saw something in me, and could help develop that.

This is not an original idea, but I was listening to a podcast probably a year ago now, and the woman being interviewed was asked for advice to her younger self.

She said something I will never forget: "If I could go back and talk to my younger self, I wouldn't give her any advice. I would ask her to tell me what I have now forgotten." 

We've developed as a culture to expect that the older you are, the wiser you are. I don't believe that's always the case. To the degree that we can be more aware of the fact that good and important ideas and perspectives can come from anywhere, everybody wins.

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