Menu
Download the app

SBJ subscribers – Enhance your experience with the revamped iOS app

Game Changers

Game Changers: Kathy Milthorpe


Getting her start in accounting, Milthorpe never saw herself working in sports.
Organizational Drivers
Kathy Milthorpe
LPGA | Chief Financial Officer

K
athy Milthorpe has overseen the finances of the LPGA at three different times in her life. First hired as director of finance in 1986, coming in from the group’s outside accounting firm (the former Coopers & Lybrand), she stayed until 1996. She came back to the LPGA in 1999 as chief financial officer after having run a men’s senior tour event in California, but she left again in 2005 to take a job at International Speedway Corp. She’s been in her current position again at the LPGA since 2010.

Her impact has been seen across those years. In 1993, she was the lead LPGA executive responsible for the creation of a child care center for women athletes, the Smucker’s LPGA Child Development Center. In the last year, Milthorpe led the development of, and is now implementing, a three-year strategic growth plan for the tour. The plan aims to develop the tour across its areas of operation, including tournaments and its overall fan following.

— Liz Mullen


  • Crowning professional achievement: The ability to have three different tenures at the LPGA under a variety of leaders.
  • Person who had the biggest influence on your career in sports: Charlie Mechem, the former LPGA commissioner (1991-95), because he was a very seasoned executive with the talent of being the smartest person in the room but made you feel like the smartest person in the room.
  • Best advice you’ve received: Work hard and be fair to others, and the rest of it will happen naturally.
  • What would you, at age 18, find surprising about the person you’ve become today?: I never thought I would be working in sports. Going into accounting, I didn’t think I’d end up in sports.
  • The biggest challenge I face working in the sports business is …: Not enough time in the day.
  • My vision of success is …: A collaborative team that accomplishes goals together.

“Kathy is a unique blend of overwhelmingly high capacity and laser-sharp strategic thinking skills. It is virtually impossible to give Kathy more work than she can handle — and trust me, I’ve tried. In addition, Kathy understands the history and personality of the LPGA but can still challenge the status quo, given her experiences outside the LPGA. Due to her ability to bring strategic insight to any situation, she is involved, in one way or another, in almost every business decision we make at the LPGA.”

— Mike Whan | Commissioner | LPGA

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2013/09/09/Game-Changers/Kathy-Milthorpe.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2013/09/09/Game-Changers/Kathy-Milthorpe.aspx

CLOSE