pepsico
Gymnastics is a sport requiring a heady mix of agility, balance, flexibility and strength. As a gymnast since age 5, who has competed at the sport’s highest levels, Justin Toman has been developing those skills for years. As Pepsi’s director of sports marketing, he continues to use those abilities as a marketing practitioner, combining a natural agility and the strength of PepsiCo’s resources to develop the critical balance and flexibility for the soda/snack food giant’s top-shelf portfolio of sports sponsorships and its massive marketing budget.
Toman can’t recall why he started doing gymnastics. “I was bouncing off the walls anyway, so I guess my mom sent me to the Y,” he said. He went to Michigan on scholarship, where he helped it win the 1999 national team title. It was not without cost, however: Toman has had seven surgeries and competed in the 2000 U.S. Olympic trials with a torn ACL. “Slowed me down, but did not stop me,” he recalled.
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The same was true after Toman realized that he wanted to combine brand marketing and sports marketing. Toman did a few years more at Michigan, earning a master’s in sports management and later an MBA. Then he spent five years on Pepsi’s brand side with Mountain Dew, Propel, AMP Energy and brand Pepsi, before joining the sports group in 2007.
Toman gets kudos from the properties Pepsi sponsors for being poised and focused. Still sounds like a gymnast, doesn’t it?
“Justin’s creative, aggressive and a problem solver,” said Renie Anderson, NFL senior vice president of sponsorship and partnership management. “He’s led the [Super Bowl] halftime show activation and really taken it from a sponsorship to a partnership.”
As for the recent Super Bowl? Despite the Patriots’ epic comeback, the buzz at Pepsi HQ is that Pepsi won. “The ratings and halftime show were great, our b-to-b customers were happy, we had a great presence in Houston, and we had the most-tweeted hashtag in #Pepsihalftime,” he said.
All that sounds like a pretty good balance of strength and agility.
— Terry Lefton
justin toman
pepsico | director of sports marketing
Age: 37
Where born: New Haven, Conn.
Education: University of Michigan: (B.S., biomechanics; M.A., sports management; MBA)
Family: Wife, Jennifer; children, Alex (3 in May); Grace (6 months)
What do you know now that you wish you’d known at age 20: Career paths are not linear, and the best experiences come from the twists and turns.
Person in the industry you’d most like to meet: Adam Silver.
I am one of the best I know at … : Doing a handstand. I held a handstand once for 18 minutes and 41 seconds, which may be a record.
Most thrilling/adventurous thing I’ve ever done is … : I ran a Tough Mudder with some buddies. It was a great experience.
You’d be surprised to know that … : My sophomore year (1999) at Michigan, we won the NCAA team gymnastics title and I won the individual title. After that, I was named University of Michigan’s Athlete of the Year over Tom Brady, but I think Brady has done OK for himself since.
