Danielle Lazor — Aramark

DuHon Photography

Danielle Lazor oversees a $400 million food and beverage portfolio and a $150 million retail and merchandise portfolio for Aramark Sports + Entertainment. Based in Phoenix, Lazor has been the executive leader for several Super Bowls, five NFL Drafts and the U.S. Open Tennis Championships, and led renovations and grand openings for more than 15 new professional sports and entertainment venues. About 30 accounts fall under Lazor’s purview, including the Colorado Rockies, Denver Broncos, San Jose Sharks and three collegiate accounts — USC, Washington and Arizona — as well as various convention centers and other types of cultural and entertainment attractions.

But her path to running an entire region of Aramark’s business was not a traditional F&B journey, coming up through the venue world. Many of her 18 years at Aramark were spent in marketing roles, including spearheading the company’s celebrity chef program and brand partnership strategy, featuring collaborations with Shake Shack, Maria Menounos, and others. She also led an experiential concept of retail and conceived and launched the concessionaire’s marketing and innovation functions that help surface new technologies that its venue clients can access.

“It’s not typical that a hardcore operator transitions into executive leadership function roles, like retail or marketing, but my passion has always been innovation and marketing, so even as an operator, everything I’ve done I look at it through that lens. It was just in me, part of my education,” Lazor said. “It isn’t common, but after being in those other roles, I really then wanted to go back and apply all of that to operations where I have real direct control.”

Even Lazor’s personal time is primarily spent in indoor sports venues. Her two teenage sons are already both at least 6-foot-5, and very likely will follow in the footsteps of their 6-foot-9 dad, Bobby Lazor, who played college basketball at Syracuse and Arizona State. — Bret McCormick