The Athlete Effect™ with Bonnie Bernstein

Imagine the pressure of bringing a Founding Father's dream to life. You've just stepped into Lara Krug's shoes. In 2021, the Kansas City Chiefs hired Lara as the club's first Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). The assignment? Build the Chiefs into a global brand. Not just a national powerhouse. GLOBAL. The mission was hatched by Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt, at a time when a sports team's idea of a marke...

Who knows more about using tools to achieve your goals than Home Depot's Chief Marketing Officer?  Yeah. That's a pretty short list.  Molly Battin's competitive mindset enabled her to juggle four sports in high school and balance crew with Ivy League academics at Princeton. That same grit shows up every day in a career that's taken her to C-suite roles at Turner, WarnerMedia, Delta Air L...

Athletes Unlimited Softball Commissioner Kim Ng learned everything she needed to become a trailblazing sports executive in two places: The softball diamond and the tennis court. A 4-year starting infielder for the University of Chicago, Kim graduated with a master's degree in dedication, grit, perseverance and the willingness to fail, DESPITE a fear of failure. (Say that last part out loud, and si...

Kit Hoover doesn’t sugarcoat it: she was in way over her head at ESPN. First time doing live TV. First time reading a teleprompter. All while navigating postpartum depression with two young daughters. The UNC track and cross-country athlete reveals how the sports mindset she mastered on the course helped her find her stride and thrive in broadcasting. In this candid conversation with Bonnie Bernst...

She walked onto two teams at Hampton University and nearly got kicked off one of ’em for bad grades. Could anyone have predicted then that Jacqie McWilliams Parker would one day become the first Black woman to lead an NCAA athletic conference, in any division? Probably not. That’s how stories become fairy tales. Since 2012, “The Commish” has led the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CI...

Slumps happen. Keep shooting. A lesson State Farm CMO Kristyn Cook learned from her high school basketball coach and one she’s carried with her from her days as a Syracuse hoops player throughout her 25+ year career in the insurance industry. In this episode, Kristyn joins Bonnie to talk about a pivotal decision she faced when her family moved during her sophomore year of high school and how that...

Inner City Arts CEO Shelby Williams-González believes her leadership philosophy was forged on the taekwondo mat. A first-degree black belt at age 12. A silver medalist at the National Collegiate Taekwondo Championships her freshman year at UC Berkeley. A career that, until college, entailed training and competing primarily against boys and men. Shelby's never been afraid of getting kicked in the f...

Marketing executive Vanessa Wallace has run point for Nike’s Jordan Brand, Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty, and GLD, which counts Jay-Z as a major investor. How'd she prepare for those high-pressure roles? Playing hoops for the Texas Longhorns. Vanessa dishes on how her four years as a starter on The Forty Acres equipped her with the team-building skills, preparation and discipline necessary to mobilize...

At 23, Erin Matson became the youngest Division I head coach to win an NCAA championship. Less than two months after graduating from the University of North Carolina, and after capturing four national titles as a Tar Heels player, Erin faced her next big test: taking the reins from Hall of Fame coach Karen Shelton. In this episode, Erin shares how the preparation and attention to detail she master...

"You can't have 'amazing' without hard." It's the mantra Donna Lamar learned on the track and the leadership philosophy that's guided her entire career. The former Texas Tech sprinter has built an award-winning creative and production career, leading teams at Spotify and Twitter while shaping campaigns for iconic brands like Nike and Gatorade. One of the biggest influences on her success? A windin...

As a field hockey goalie at Babson College, Elissa Kalver knew every move she made... mattered. Little did she know then that an athlete mindset built on resilience, perseverance, and the ability to "control the controllables" would one day help her navigate profound loss, entrepreneurship, and a Stage 4 HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer diagnosis just days before her daughter's first birthda...

NCAA sports aren’t the only path to executive leadership, just ask former Sun Bum CEO Cynthia Herrera. Cynthia spent more than 20 years in executive sales and marketing roles at global consumer goods giant SC Johnson (think Windex, Pledge, Raid, and Method), including a six-year stint leading Sun Bum. In this conversation with Bonnie Bernstein, she shares how her club volleyball experience at West...

Olympic gold medalist Dominique Dawes joins the podcast to discuss life after sports, overcoming identity crisis and a perfectionist mindset, and thriving as an entrepreneur, team owner, and mother of four. A three-time Olympian, Dawes was a member of the 1996 Magnificent Seven squad that secured Team USA's first Olympic gold in women's gymnastics. Today, she's the founder of the Dominique Dawes G...

Female Quotient CEO Shelley Zalis proudly wears the title "Chief Troublemaker." An award-winning tech entrepreneur, the first female CEO of a Top 25 market research firm, and a fearless champion for workplace equality, she didn't just shatter the glass ceiling, she made her own rules. Shelley shares with Bonnie Bernstein how teamwork learned through tennis has informed her "Power of the Pack" lead...

WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert was a two-sport athlete at Lehigh and became Deloitte’s first female CEO. Today, she’s one of the most powerful women in sports. Engelbert joins Bonnie Bernstein on The Athlete Effect™ for a conversation focused on her journey from athlete to WNBA Commissioner, and the defining moments that have forged her path. She reflects on the evolution of her leadership styl...

Jessica Mendoza is the first woman to call a World Series for a national network. Now she's paving the way for women in sports broadcasting. A two-time softball Olympian, Stanford All-American, groundbreaking ESPN MLB analyst, and one of the most influential Latina women in sports, Jessica joins Bonnie Bernstein to explore how the laser focus and poise under pressure honed as an athlete has kept h...

Dr. Seun Adigun, 2x Olympian, CEO and biomechanist, shares how her competitive sports mindset fuels her success in medicine, business, and leadership. A first-generation Nigerian-American, Dr. Adigun earned a full track scholarship to the University of Houston and represented Nigeria in the 100m hurdles at the 2012 Summer Olympics. She later made history as the founder and pilot of Nigeria’s first...

One of only 33 Black female neurosurgeons in the U.S., Dr. Theresa Williamson joins Bonnie Bernstein to reveal how her Yale soccer experience shaped her path to the operating room. Williamson currently serves as the Director of Minimally Invasive Endoscopic Surgery at Brown University Health. She explains how sports shaped her ability to perform under pressure, communicate effectively, make critic...

Ginger Zee, ABC News Chief Meteorologist, Good Morning America co-host, and New York Times bestselling author joins veteran sports journalist and host Bonnie Bernstein on The Athlete Effect™ to explore how her experience as a multisport athlete shaped her career in meteorology and broadcast journalism. She reflects on how sports built confidence, discipline, and mental toughness, and the parallel...

O nce an athlete, always an athlete.  Did you know that 94% of female C-suite executives played sports? The Athlete Effect™ leadership and career development podcast explores the powerful connection between sports participation and professional achievement, delivering actionable insights for anyone striving to be a high performer, long after the final whistle.  Emmy-winning sports journa...