Hayes Grooms IV is a former athlete, sports enthusiast, and pioneering professional—all in one. As the Director of Talent and Partnerships, Grooms cultivates and manages strategic partnerships with athletes, organizations, and leagues within the sports industry.

Before joining RISE, he was the Vice President of Sports and Entertainment at French West Vaughan in which he helmed marketing, public relations, and brand management services to professional athletes. Prior to his acquisition with FWV, he founded G.A.M.E. in 2010 after extensive years in the industry representing talent. With a drive to execute winning combinations for every client, he has fostered relationships with diverse media outlets and created partnerships with numerous brands.

Additionally, he devotes tremendous efforts toward philanthropic endeavors. He continues to mentor through Elevate, a NYC based educational, nonprofit dedicated on building long-term, life-changing relationships for urban youth. He also played point guard at Michigan—and bleeds Maize and Blue.

Mr. Stahlberger is currently Senior Vice President of Talent Marketing at WME/IMG. In this role, Mr. Stahlberger leads the marketing, licensing, and charitable efforts for some of the biggest sports & entertainment personalities from Hockey’s Greatest Star, Wayne Gretzky and 4x Super Bowl Champion and FOX Sports Analyst Terry Bradshaw to Detroit Lions QB, Matthew Stafford and several others, including MLB stars Joe Mauer and JD Martinez. He also represents some of Sports top broadcasters including Scott Van Pelt, Trey Wingo, Kevin Negandhi, Louis Riddick, and Holly Sonders.

Prior to joining WME/IMG, Ira served as Senior Vice President of Marketing and Strategic Partnerships at Intersport in Chicago, a leading sports media & event company.  At Intersport, he led and aggressively grew the media division’s sales efforts, focused on creating, developing and delivering proprietary programming ideas to Fortune 500 clients, including: Capital One, Sprint, Liberty Mutual, Burger King, Pepsi, Under Armour, Taco Bell, Target, EA Sports, Fed Ex and many others.

A native of New Jersey, Mr. Stahlberger began his career in advertising at New York based, Mezzina/Brown, a subsidiary of WPP’s Young & Rubicam, on the RJ Reynolds business.  He was recruited by the Leo Burnett Company where he led a number of package-goods accounts within the Philip Morris portfolio. He co-founded Leo Burnett’s Field Marketing group while working on Miller, Miller Lite, Oldsmobile and Marlboro.

In 1998, Mr. Stahlberger moved to the brand side as a Marketing Manager for The Coca-Cola Company. In this role, he developed a number of integrated marketing programs for Coca-Cola customers throughout the Midwest. He left the company in 2001 to pursue his passion of sports & marketing.

Mr. Stahlberger has a BA from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and was selected by Crain’s Chicago Business as one of their “40 Under 40” in 2011. He and his wife, Jennifer, reside in Highland Park, IL and have three daughters…all Michigan fans!

Background: With integrated sales, marketing, and general management expertise, Greeley has breadth and depth of experience in and around the sports-entertainment industry. He began with the hockey division of Compuware Corporation and then the Detroit Pistons/Palace Sports & Entertainment, before joining the Portland Trailblazers with Paul Allen’s Vulcan Sports & Entertainment, where his responsibilities included Seattle Seahawks duties and the acquisition and management of a college sports rights holder, Action Sports Media. In 2000, Greeley joined the Chicago Bears as Chief Marketing Officer, where he re-engineered its business and helped develop the new Soldier Field, all of which led to a 3X enterprise value increase for the team during his tenure. Greeley has also run services businesses in the agency (KemperSports) and consulting (Magid) worlds, in addition to being the President of the Chicago Fire of Major League Soccer. Most recently, Greeley advised Precourt Sports Ventures with its investment thesis and all of its due diligence, negotiations, and purchase of the MLS’s Columbus Crew and Crew Stadium and now serves PSV and its Managing Partner, Anthony Precourt in its operations of the Crew and the future growth and development of the privately-held sports-entertainment investment firm.

College: University of Michigan, B.A. and M.B.A.

Testimonial: “As a Board Advisor, it was obvious that students behind the Michigan Sport Business Conference put in a ton of effort with planning the event. It came together very nicely bringing together Wolverine alumni and students alike, plus other impressive executives in the industry.”

Background:In his current role, Shea oversees a staff of fifteen and is responsible for managing the brand’s global sports marketing portfolio, including all league, team and athlete partnerships and negotiations. Shea has worked at PepsiCo since 2003, holding progressive brand management and sports marketing positions during that time. Most notably, prior to his current role, Shea led Gatorade’s new product innovation including the development and successful launch of the G Series and the brand’s evolution from Sports Drink to Sports Performance Nutrition. Earlier in his career, Shea worked as a marketing consultant at EMI Strategic Marketing, managing marketing strategy consulting projects for Consumer Products, Healthcare and Financial Services clients. He also worked at Liberty Mutual in Mergers & Acquisitions, building a $2 billion insurance business through multiple acquisitions as a charter member of a five-person acquisition and business development team.

College: Boston College, B.S. in Marketing and University of Michigan, M.B.A.

Background: As the head of the Nielsen Sports Group, Master developed the “FANALYTICS” platform which provides brands & properties with a deeper understanding of how fans consume sports content as well as measuring the impact of sports sponsorship investments. He also created the Nielsen N-Score which is the leading measurement tool for evaluating the brand effect of professional athletes and sports personalities, enabling advertisers to make smart marketing decisions on commercial endorsements. Prior to joining Nielsen, Master was the Vice President of Business Development of Corporate Sponsorships at the NFL, the VP of Marketing Solutions for Octagon Worldwide and the Director of Business Development in the International Group for the NBA.

College: University of Michigan, B.B.A. and Northwestern University, M.B.A.

Testimonial: “The MSBC was an amazing success. What this group of students pulled together for a first-time event was nothing short of extraordinary! The conference brought together top sports media & marketing executives from across the country to Ann Arbor to offer career advice, insights and industry trends for the current students and recent grads in the sports marketing world. Additionally, the event provided a great opportunity for the many Michigan alums, like myself, working in the media & sports marketing industry to come back to campus and network with students and other Wolverines, which is really what the power of the Michigan network is all about.”

Background: Ader was named Senior Director of Sports Marketing in 2005 and is responsible for a wide array of ESPN’s marketing efforts. These include ESPN’s NFL programming — Monday Night Football, Sunday NFL Countdown, The NFL Draft, ESPN’s Fantasy Football, ESPN’s soccer properties, including the FIFA World Cup, European Championship, English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, MLS and USA Soccer and ESPN’s MLB programming and the Little League World Series. Before joining ESPN in 2001 as a marketing manager, Ader served as the Vice President of Marketing of Book4Golf.com, Director of Marketing and Public Relations for Tear Drop/Tommy Armour Golf Co., Sales Manager for Conde Nast Publications and Corporate Marketing Manager for the New Jersey Nets.

College: University of Michigan, B.A. in Sport Management and Communications