Speaker Profile

Jaymee Messler serves as president of The Players' Tribune, a first-of-its-kind digital media company dedicated to empowering athletes with the tools they need to telltheir stories. In addition to first-person essays, the platform features an array of video content, podcasts, and original photography. Messler co-founded The Players' Tribune with Derek Jeter. She oversees the strategy and long-term vision of the business, industry relations, sales and marketing, and athlete relations. In just over a year, the company has grown in every way possible since it launched. The platform has published more than 700 pieces of original content from more than 450 athlete contributors. Messler joined The Players' Tribune from Excel Sports Management where she was one of the first hires when the agency was established in 2002. From 2002-2014, she worked her way up to one of the most powerful sports marketing executives in the business. As the agency's CMO, she developed an industry-leading benchmark formula for player marketing that included client services, public relations, cause-related programs and community outreach, social media and digital programming, branded content and corporate partnerships. At Excel, she engineered partnerships and oversaw marketing for high-profile NBA and MLB clients including Paul Pierce, Blake Griffin, Kevin Love, Tyson Chandler, Deron Williams, Jason Kidd, and Kemba Walker. In 2011, when leading MLB agent Casey Close joined Excel, she added Jeter and Clayton Kershaw to her marketing responsibilities. Messler also branched out into golf, workingwith veteran golf agent Mark Steinberg when he joined the firm in 2011, on representing Tiger Woods, Matt Kuchar, Cheyenne Woods, Patrick Cantlay, and Justin Rose. She took the helm of all branding, corporate communications, and corporate relationships on behalf of the agency. She had the foresight about the emergence of digital into the marketing spend mix, and created Excel's corporate digital strategy, website and social media presence, as well as oversaw the digital and social media strategies for the agency's individual clients. This foresight has been the cornerstone for many initiatives that has brought millions to the athletes and great success to brand partners. Messler holds a B. A. in Journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park and resides in New York City.