Photo: TOM KIMMEL PHOTOGRAPHY
I
t can be tough being in charge of long-term, systemic improvement at an organization that always has another major event on the horizon. Benita Fitzgerald Mosley said she finds it helpful to apply themes from her gold-medal-winning track and field career. To wit: Stressing an individual’s obligation to the team along with the importance of pursuing your next personal best.
Benita
Fitzgerald Mosley
U.S. Olympic Committee |
Chief of Organizational Excellence
For instance, Fitzgerald Mosley has been trying to teach the U.S. Olympic Committee to use data to make business decisions more often. When most of the group is consumed with the countdown to Rio 2016, it’s not easy to persuade employees to step back from the seemingly always-urgent details and reconsider their entire approach.
“Folks want to take things to the next level, but you’ve got to make it easy for them,” she said.
So she started small, with a pilot project in data analysis, and she frames her work like a track coach. Sure, running is an individual sport, but each individual result adds up to a team meet score. And the goal can’t be just to navigate the Olympics as well as was done the last time. Instead, the aim should be to always do it a little better — or, that personal best.
That philosophy has served Fitzgerald Mosley well in her career, from her role in authoring a report critical of USA Track and Field after a disappointing 2008 Olympic performance, to later serving as chief of sport performance for that governing body, to her appointment to the USOC in 2013.
“I really do believe in this idea of personal bests, either individually or collectively,” she said.
— Ben Fischer
- Notable professional achievement: As chief of sport performance, guiding the USA Track & Field team to 29 medals at the 2012 Olympic Games in London. It was the sport’s highest medal total in 20 years, and the second highest in U.S. history.
- Biggest professional disappointment: Missing our well-publicized goal of winning 30 track and field medals in London, especially since our athletes achieved nine fourth places, any one of which would have gotten us the magic 30 medals.
- Best advice received: [IOC member] Anita DeFrantz told me in 1992 that the best way to get more involved in the U.S. Olympic movement was through the USOC Athletes’ Advisory Council. Later that year, I was fortunate enough to be elected by my peers to represent USA Track & Field on the AAC, which catapulted my career in sports management.
- Causes supported: Women’s Sports Foundation board of trustees (past president, past chair, and board member since 1995); U.S. Olympic Museum board of directors; IOC Women and Sport Commission.
- Woman in sports business I’d most like to meet: Jeanie Buss, because as president and part-owner of the L.A. Lakers, it’s rare to see a daughter succeed her father in taking over the family business.
- Most memorable sporting event attended: Winning gold in the 100 meter hurdles at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
- If my colleagues were asked to describe me, they would say I: Am a team player and a passionate ambassador for the Olympic movement.
