Former NASCAR and International Speedway Corp. executive Roger VanDerSnick is joining IMG College in a high-ranking role to be determined.
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GORT PRODUCTIONS
Roger VanDerSnick joins some fellow NASCAR alums. |
VanDerSnick will report to Ben Sutton, president of IMG College, where he’ll rejoin a couple of familiar faces from his days as vice president of marketing at NASCAR: George Pyne and Mark Dyer. Pyne, Dyer and VanDerSnick worked together at NASCAR through the early to mid-2000s. Pyne, formerly NASCAR’s COO, is president of IMG Sports & Entertainment, while Dyer, NASCAR’s former licensing chief, is IMG College’s senior vice president over business ventures.
These former NASCAR executives at IMG also will welcome another old co-worker, Andrew Giangola, who is leaving the stock car racing sanctioning body to join IMG College as vice president of strategic communications later this month. Giangola joined NASCAR in 2003 and has served as director of business communications in the New York office before accepting an offer to lead communications for IMG College last week.
The moves continue to bolster Sutton’s front office, which has been a work in progress since IMG College’s acquisition of ISP Sports last year.
“I told Roger a long time ago that he needed to come work for IMG College one day,” Sutton said. “He’s going to bring great value to the company through his wisdom and experience. We’re still working on exactly what his responsibilities and title will be, but he’s going to be able to help us in a lot of ways.”
VanDerSnick was released last August by ISC, where he was executive vice president and COO, as the company went through a management restructuring and downsizing. He’s been working part-time with Sutton the last few months as a consultant in licensing, sales and branding, most of which will factor into his new role.
IMG College, the largest division within IMG, outlined several areas that VanDerSnick likely will touch when he comes on board full time:
• He’ll help IMG College interface with other units within parent IMG, such as talent, academies, consulting and events, which will come into play if the college division moves into running or owning bowl games and basketball tournaments;
• Sutton said IMG College needs someone to serve as a brand manager. VanDerSnick, who spent 15 years at Procter & Gamble and once served as brand manager for Bounty paper towels, was vital in building NASCAR’s brand. He’ll work on a long-term branding strategy for IMG College;
• VanDerSnick will continue to work with Sutton and founder Bill Battle on a reorganization of IMG’s Collegiate Licensing Co. With the departure of former CEO Pat Battle and former COO Derek Eiler, CLC is going through a resetting of its leadership;
• There also will be a role for VanDerSnick as IMG College develops its new national sales platform under the direction of Lawton Logan, senior vice president.
“A lot of it will be organizational design and how we need to be structured as a company,” VanDerSnick said.
Currently, VanDerSnick doesn’t have any IMG College employees reporting to him. He still lives in Lake Mary, Fla., and it remains to be seen if he’ll relocate to IMG College headquarters in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Eiler, meanwhile, is back with IMG College after taking a three-month leave. He formerly ran the day-to-day operations as the COO at CLC before leaving the licensing group in January. In his new role reporting to Sutton, Eiler will focus on projects such as IMG College’s digital strategy.
Eiler is working with TV and media strategy firm Len DeLuca & Associates on an initiative to identify TV and digital programming opportunities for IMG College.
