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Marketing and Sponsorship

Hire by Montag boosts consulting push

Talent representation will always be the core of Sandy Montag’s agency, but consulting represents a burgeoning segment for The Montag Group.

The firm’s president and CEO hopes that by hiring veteran marketer Matt Kauffman, the consulting business can kick into an even higher gear.

Matt Kauffman is The Montag Group’s new vice president of consulting.
Photo by: DAVID DUROCHIK
Kauffman, 48, a previous SBJ/SBD Forty Under 40 winner, has guided the global marketing efforts of major brands such as General Motors, Visa and, most recently, Intel. Now he’s taking that experience to the consulting side as vice president, consulting, with Montag.

“I’ve spent the vast majority of my career on the brand side,” Kauffman said. “While I enjoyed that and they provided incredible experiences, I’m excited about taking 25 years of experience to help other companies and brands achieve their ambitions. We can help brands understand where they need to be in the sports landscape.”

Montag established himself as one of the premier talent agents in the field during his 30 years at IMG. When WME acquired IMG in 2014, Montag founded his own agency, while also helping the integration of WME-IMG. That run came to an end in 2016 and Montag the past year has worked exclusively on building his eight-person team at The Montag Group to work on talent, sports media and the growing consulting business.

Michael Schenker, vice president of business development, has spent the past year and a half developing a consulting discipline that now services a half-dozen clients, such as 15 Seconds of Fame, the facial recognition technology, and FoodyDirect.com. Kyle Lierman, who joined Montag in March, is part of the consulting team as well, giving the firm three people now to consult with brands, teams and leagues.

While The Montag Group will compete in the consulting space against a number of larger agencies and plenty of independents, the company is hoping the strength of its relationships and experience will distinguish it.

“I think where we can have an impact is looking at brands from 30,000 feet, helping them with strategy, helping them manage their brand,” Montag said. “A lot of it is accessing our Rolodex to further their business.”

Kauffman will remain in his San Francisco Bay Area base, but he expects to spend plenty of time at Montag headquarters in White Plains, N.Y., as well as Manhattan.

He left his position at Intel earlier this year after building an impressive sponsorship portfolio that included the NBA All-Star Game, Super Bowl, ESPN’s X Games, the Grammy Awards and Red Bull Media House. It took just a couple of conversations with Montag for both sides to see the potential.

“We can show brands where opportunities exist in sports,” Kauffman said. “Intel was a great experience because it really showed what you can do for tech companies that don’t understand the sports space.”

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