Background:  

The Los Angeles Kings are a professional ice hockey team based in Los Angeles, California, and are a member of the NHL’s Western Conference. Established in 1967 as part of the league’s first major expansion, the Kings became one of the original franchises in the Pacific Division. Initially, the team struggled to find sustained success, but their fortunes changed in the late 1980s with the acquisition of legendary player Wayne Gretzky, a move that greatly elevated the team’s profile and helped grow the sport’s popularity in Southern California. The franchise’s greatest successes came in the 2010s, when the Kings won two Stanley Cups in three years, capturing their first title in 2012 and repeating in 2014. 

The ownership of the Los Angeles Kings has played a pivotal role in the franchise's development and success over the years. Since its inception in 1967, the team has had several ownership changes, but the most notable ownership group in recent history is the Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), which has owned the Kings since 1995. AEG is headed by billionaire Philip Anschutz, one of the most influential figures in the sports and entertainment industry. Under Anschutz’s leadership, the Kings saw increased investment in the franchise, including improvements to their home arena, Crypto.com Arena, and a more competitive approach to team building. 

AEG's ownership has been instrumental in the Kings' rise to prominence, especially during the 2010s.The group’s commitment to the Kings has included both financial investment and strategic decisions aimed at securing a championship contender. While AEG's leadership has been key in the team’s success, the Kings have also benefitted from Anschutz’s broader vision of promoting the NHL in a non-traditional hockey market like Los Angeles. The ownership group has continued to prioritize the growth of the franchise, both on and off the ice, as the Kings aim to remain a competitive force in the league moving forward. 

Any interested candidates should contact TurnkeyZRG directly.

Contacting the Los Angeles Kings will only delay consideration of your qualifications.

Position Summary:

The VP, Business Intelligence and Technology Strategy is charged with delivering meaningful insights and strategic recommendations for the LA Kings business as well as developing and enabling strategies to drive and grow audience and revenues, enhance customer experience, drive innovation, reduce costs and identify new operational efficiencies.

The role will lead strategies around technology innovation, data science and analytics, consumer research, business operations, global data management and data security.

This position will work closely with cross-functional teams from within the LA Kings portfolio as well as contacts across the global AEG Corporate network at AXS Ticketing, AEG Presents, AEG Global Partnerships, AEG Europe, AEG Corporate Technology and other third-party partner companies (Such as Levy, Rank and Rally, ASEC). This position will be tasked with ensuring internal team goals are met as well as achieving external corporate goals (Technology Innovation, Data Governance, Data Security) as assigned.

Duties and Responsibilities:  

• Manage the Technology, Data & Analytics team, setting goals and defining projects and priorities to support and develop the team data environments in collaboration with other AEG corporate business units.

• Provide guidance and strategy to employees who deliver products developed using Microsoft PowerApps and Microsoft Dynamics and other tech stack tools to support business operations.

• Oversee all data platforms for LA Kings and affiliated teams while promoting the advancement of a data-driven culture across the organization.

• Develop and lead initiatives to better understand customers across all platforms. Leverage that understanding to deliver an enabling analytic tool set across varied businesses.

• Work with key stakeholders to understand the strategy and imperatives of the business.

• Develop, prioritize and execute digital strategy which will deliver the organization’s commercial and operational ambitions.

• Develop and manage the Data, Analytics and Strategy team’s operational and capital budgets to enable the delivery of services and projects which will underpin that strategy.

• Collaborate with sales and marketing leadership to define and deliver the strategy for CRM and digital/marketing technology across the Kings and other AEG companies when applicable.

• Responsible for contractual and financial monitoring of relationships with external suppliers who support activities in this area, including the relationship with AEG’s email service and data append providers.

• Collaborate with hockey team operations leadership groups to provide data and technology recommendations to effectively operate data driven systems and decisions for purposes of creating winning organizations. The goal will be to work with the team leadership, engineering and data personnel to recommend effective systems for evaluation and cross collaboration between business and hockey operations.

• Provide direction and thought leadership with respect to data and analytics, including the use of machine learning, natural language processing, deep learning, artificial intelligence, robotics/automation, big data technologies, and digital enablement.

• Work with Operations and Finance team to direct annual business planning processes for LA Kings while consulting with all other AEG Teams on similar processes and consolidation of information.

• Collaborate with senior management on developing advanced cross-platform monetization strategies focused on optimizing ticket inventory while delivering on contextual and behavioral based targeting attributes and post-campaign outcomes.

• Direct the LA Kings and affiliated teams with Corporate Global Technology team to meet all Data Governance, Data Security and Technology standards as set by TAC and AEG Global Technology.

• Leverage in-depth understanding of company products as well as marketplace trends to inform and guide analysis tools that will help drive sales in a rapidly changing digital landscape.

• Manage experimentation framework and collaborate closely with product and marketing leaders across the business units to assist in the design and implementation of A/B and multivariate testing for various marketing and CRM strategies.

• Effectively communicate quantitative findings (storytelling with data), make and defend meaningful conclusions and recommendations, identify and interpret trends and relationships to product and business stakeholders.

• Provide resources as directed by supervisor for management and consultation of global sports initiatives as requested

• Manage budgets directly for data and technology while having an operational impact on all owned and managed AEG teams (LA Kings, Ontario Reign, Berlin Eisbaren and collaboration with LA Galaxy, other sports projects as they develop) as well as all LA Kings managed facilities and working across platform at AEG to drive results.

Required Skills & Qualifications:  

The VP, Business Intelligence and Technology Strategy must possess the following knowledge, skills and abilities and be able to explain and demonstrate that he or she can perform the essential functions of the job, with or without reasonable accommodation, using some other combination of skill and abilities: 

• Bachelor’s degree in business or a discipline with a qualitative focus, including but not limited to: mathematics, statistics, computer science, economics, operations research, marketing or related discipline.

• Advanced degree preferred, but not required.

• Minimum of 10 years of experience in data-driven consulting, analysis or project management.

• Proven experience in CRM, advanced analysis (modeling, segmentation, quantitative and qualitative research, etc.

• 7+ years of experience managing a team and reporting to senior leadership

• Experience with Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a plus

• Proficiency with SQL, Python, R, Scala and design codes like HTML, JavaScript are a plus

• Experience in the identification and implementation of strategy through the utilization of KPI’s, operational insights, predictive modeling and research.

• Experience in the sports and entertainment industry preferred, but not required.

• Superior relationship building and consultation skills; excellent ability to drive organizational adoption of philosophies, data-driven decision-making techniques and overall system implementation.

• Extensive experience I cross-departmental collaboration.

• Superior verbal, written, organization and multi-tasking skills.

Base Compensation: $210,000 - $230,000