CMO Phelps: 'With her strong leadership skills, she's perfect for the job'
RELATED: Jill Gregory tapped to lead NASCAR Marketing
NASCAR announced Thursday that Jill Gregory will assume the leadership of NASCAR Marketing as senior vice president, marketing and industry services. She will replace Kim Brink, who has been named chief executive officer of Global Team Ford, the WPP-owned group of agencies dedicated to Ford.
Gregory will continue to retain oversight over industry services and lead the sanctioning body's Driver Star Power initiative. As part of her current role, she has helped lead the rollout of initiatives created by NASCAR Marketing, which makes her a perfect fit for her new responsibilities, according to NASCAR Chief Marketing Officer Steve Phelps.
"With the opportunities on the marketing side in industry services, there is some overlap there, and given her skill set, she can bring those two groups together and be integrated," Phelps said. "And we'll be stronger as a sport or as an entity than we had been before.
"In our overall marketing, whether it's our brand marketing, our advertising or the marketing on the industry services/Driver Star Power side, we've had two excellent leaders in Jill and Kim. And the output has been extraordinary. Combining the two will give us the opportunity to create something even better, which is a high bar. I have no doubt that Jill and her team will exceed it."
As Gregory transitions into her new role, she looks forward to combining the strengths of the industry services and marketing groups to create something greater than the sum of their parts.
"The goal and the opportunity here is to just make the two groups stronger together than they were individually so as Steve mentioned, the partnership that we already had with the marketing team was very strong," Gregory said. "There's a potential that it could be even more efficient and more impactful to the industry with the two groups together.
"Kim has built a great team, and I'm really excited to add that group to the strong team that we already have on the industry services side and make us better than ever."
The new Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup format, launched in 2014, is an example of how the two groups have worked together in the past and may work together more closely under Gregory's leadership.
"We already have been a big part of those discussions as it relates to Chase creative. Having the two groups together is just going to increase our efficiency," Gregory said. "It's going to increase our ability to take some of those campaigns out to the industry earlier and let them take advantage of the time, all the resources and tools that NASCAR has that are available to them."
In her new role, Gregory will report to Phelps and continue to report to NASCAR Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O'Donnell. As she "builds on an already strong partnership" between industry services and marketing, she noted that this move speaks to the talent and leadership within NASCAR and the industry.
"This news is exciting from a NASCAR point of view because it's a testament to Steve Phelps, Steve O'Donnell and the amount of talent that we've been building within our leadership group," Gregory said. "It's a testament to our focus on building talent within NASCAR and promoting that talent, and it says good things to everybody across the organization because there are opportunities to continue to grow and to make an impact, and that's being recognized by the top leadership."
Her industry services group has created opportunities for its team members and strengthened NASCAR by moving to other areas of the organization. In 2013, Jimmy Small was named president of Iowa Speedway after working in Gregory's group. Earlier this year, Chad Seigler moved from vice president of team marketing services to vice president of business development, working with Chief Sales Officer Jim O'Connell, playing a critical role in securing the new NASCAR Sprint Cup entitlement sponsor.
A native of California, Gregory was a driving power in NASCAR even before joining the sanctioning body in July of 2007. As Sprint NEXTEL's director of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series marketing program, she managed all of the elements of rebranding the sport's premier series in 2003. As senior vice president of motorsports marketing with Bank of America, Gregory negotiated the bank's entry into NASCAR and established sponsorship relationships with the sport, teams and tracks.
Phelps acknowledged Brink's efforts over the last four years, and he believes Gregory's work with Brink's team make her the best person for the position.
"Kim came in and revamped our marketing group and hired Ogilvy and did some great creative, and we've got some great marketing platforms that her group now manages," Phelps said. "A lot of the execution (of those platforms) on the industry side is through Jill's group, whether you're talking about NASCAR Green, NASCAR: An American Salute or the Chase efforts. It's baked by the marketing group, and Jill's group is one that has to get it executed and integrated throughout the industry.
"Bringing the groups together will be fantastic, and with her strong leadership skills, she's perfect for the job."