Our Team

Kenneth L. Shropshire

Chief Executive Officer

Professor Shropshire is CEO of the Global Sport Institute and the adidas Distinguished Professor of Global Sport at Arizona State University. He took on this current leadership role following a thirty-year career as an endowed full professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

There he was also Director of the Wharton Sports Business Initiative, Professor of Africana Studies, and Academic Director of Wharton’s sports-focused executive education programs. He now holds the title of Wharton Endowed Professor Emeritus.

Shropshire's career has been highlighted by leading the launch of several noteworthy ventures in a variety of sectors including: leading the boxing competition during the last profitable Olympic Games, which was also the most televised event of the Games in 1984; founding and leading the Wharton Sports Business Initiative, one of the world’s most respected sports business think tanks in 2004; serving as a founder and board member of the Valley Green Bank, which was sold to Univest Corp. for $76 million in 2014; and guiding the launch of the non-profit Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality (RISE) in 2016 and serving on its board. As a sports-industry leader he is former President of the Sports Lawyers Association, the largest such organization in the world, and also former Program Chair of the ABA Forum Committee, Sports Law Section. His views and insights on the sports industry can be heard via his “Why Sport Matters” podcast.

As an author, his most recent books are "The Mis-Education of the Student Athlete: How to Fix College Sports"; "Sport Matters: Leadership, Power, and the Quest for Respect in Sports"; "Negotiate Like the Pros: A Top Sports Negotiator’s Lessons for Making Deals, Building Relationships and Getting What You Want"; and "Being Sugar Ray: The Life of America’s Greatest Boxer and First Celebrity Athlete". Additional works include the foundational books "In Black and White: Race and Sports in America"; "The Business of Sports"; and "The Business of Sports Agents".

Shropshire’s consulting roles have featured a wide variety of projects including work for the NCAA, Major League Baseball, National Football League, National Football League Players Association, the United States Olympic Committee and PGA golfer Rory McIlroy. In addition to RISE, he serves on the board of directors of Moelis & Company, a global independent investment bank, on the non-profit board of USA Volleyball, and as an advisor to the Sixers Innovation Lab.

Shropshire earned an undergraduate degree in economics from Stanford University and a law degree from Columbia University. He joined the law firm of Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg and Tunney in Los Angeles prior to working with the 1984 Olympic Games and beginning his lengthy career at Wharton.

Karina Bohn

Chief Operating Officer

Karina Forbes Bohn joined Arizona State University in January 2016 as the Executive Director of the Global Sport Institute and was named Chief Operating Officer in August 2017. Before joining ASU, Bohn was a front office executive with the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team from 2004 – 2016.

There she most recently held the position of Vice President, Marketing. In this role, she was responsible for building the D-backs brand and driving revenue by developing the team's annual marketing strategies. During her tenure, the marketing department took a lead role in generating single-game ticket sales by creating targeted special events, game day giveaways, theme nights, ticket packages and other promotions.

Prior to the D-backs, Bohn was with Momentum Worldwide, an experiential marketing agency, where she developed methods for tracking and measuring the return on investment for clients' sports-based hospitality events and assisted with local and national sponsorship activation. She has also previously held various technology marketing positions, including Director of Corporate Communications for the Phoenix-based national headquarters of a publicly traded e-business integrator.

Bohn obtained an undergraduate degree in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, received a Master of Mass Communication from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at ASU, and earned an MBA from the W. P. Carey School of Business at ASU. During her time at W. P. Carey, she served as president of the MBA Association and was recognized with the school's Sports Business award for outstanding academic achievement.

Scott N. Brooks, PhD

Director, Research

Dr. Brooks is an Associate Professor with the T. Denny Sanford School of Social & Family Dynamics at the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at ASU. As Director of Research for the Institute he acts as campus liaison, assists in the allocation of research grants, and coordinates the Institute's research agenda and projects.

As a scholar, Brooks is primarily interested in: youth and sport; inequality in sport, coaching and leadership; and community based sports interventions. He has published in academic journals, edited volumes, and textbooks; been quoted and reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Der Speigel, and SLAM magazine; and invited to speak on the topic of sport internationally. His book, Black Men Can’t Shoot (University of Chicago, 2009), tells the importance of exposure, networks, and opportunities towards earning an athletic scholarship. Additionally, Dr. Brooks has consulted the NFL, MLB, college and high school coaches and athletes; and is a senior fellow at the Wharton Sports Business Initiative and Yale Urban Ethnography Project.

View Scott Brooks' CV.

Jeff Kunowski

Associate Director, Sports Innovation and Business Development

Jeff Kunowski is the Associate Director of Sports Innovation and Business Development for the Global Sport Institute. Jeff oversees the Global Sport Institute’s sport-related development and funding programs including the Global Sport Venture Development Program and the Global Sport Social Impact Challenge. He serves this role in a dual appointment with Edson Entrepreneurship + Innovation Institute.

He also serves as an advisor for numerous start-ups and is a member of the ASU W.P. Carey Sports Business Advisory Board.

In addition to his role with the Global Sport Institute, Jeff was recently brought on by Leyard/Planar, a world leader in digital display technologies, to manage business development in the sports and entertainment markets. Prior to joining Leyard/Planar, Jeff held several positions with Panasonic Corporation of North America focused on sports venue technology. He joined Panasonic after reaching an aqua-hire deal with MK Solutions Group, a Scottsdale based consulting firm that he co-founded. Jeff got his start in the sports business space in 2010 when he founded Illumin8 Outdoor Media, an award-winning signage company based in Phoenix, AZ.

Casey Sechler, PhD

Associate Director, Research

Casey Sechler is the Associate Director, Research for the Global Sport Institute where she advances the Institute’s research initiatives. This involves providing key support to the Director of Research to develop, execute, and manage strategic plans for research projects and assists in the allocation of internal and external research grants. As a scholar, Sechler conducts and applies research that promotes positive development (with particular emphasis on youth); social and emotional learning; and advances diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

Casey Sechler holds a PhD and Master of Science in Family & Human Development (FHD) and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology with a minor in FHD from Arizona State University. Prior to joining the GSI team, Sechler was a lecturer in the School of Social & Family Dynamics at ASU where she was involved in teaching, mentorship, curriculum development, and research and advisory partnerships with youth-serving organizations such as community-based organizations and schools. She also served as co-chair of a summer fellowship program she collaboratively designed and implemented to support undergraduate students from historically underrepresented or excluded groups as they gain exposure to and experience with research and careers in the social and behavioral sciences.

Kendall Jones

Manager, Strategic Initiative

Rosemary Rutkowski

Business Operations Manager

Ra Lofton

Project Coordinator

Brendon Kleen

Senior Coordinator, Digital Content

William C. Rhoden

Visiting Senior Practitioner

William C. Rhoden works directly with Kenneth L. Shropshire, CEO of the Global Sport Institute, to provide feedback on the institute’s strategic direction and develop concepts for the Global Sport Matters content hub. He is the institute’s first visiting senior practitioner.

Rhoden is also a columnist and Editor-at-Large for The Undefeated, ESPN’s news site about sports, race, and culture. He is the curator of the Rhoden Fellows and is also the author of several books, including 40 Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete. Before joining The Undefeated, Rhoden wrote an award-winning sports column for the New York Times and appeared as a guest on ESPN’s Sports Reporters for nearly 30 years. Rhoden began his journalism career as a news reporter at the Baltimore Afro American Newspaper. He was a senior editor with Ebony Magazine and then a columnist and jazz critic for the Baltimore Sun. Rhoden attended Morgan State University in Baltimore where he majored in English.

Tarlan Chahardovali, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Scholar

Tarlan Chahardovali is a postdoctoral research scholar for the Global Sport Institute. As a researcher, her scholarly activities are grounded in improving diversity, identifying structural inequities, policy making, and gender equity in sport. Tarlan’s current line of inquiry focuses on labor and demand in sport markets with a special focus on the value of women’s labor and gender pay gap in the sport industry.

Tarlan Chahardovali holds a Doctoral of Philosophy (PhD) and a Master of Science in Sport Management from Florida State University in addition to a Bachelor of Science degree in Physical Education/Exercise Science from Al Zahra University in Tehran, Iran. Tarlan was a competitive middle-distance runner in her home country of Iran prior to moving to the U.S. in 2014. She can be reached at tarlan.chahardovali@asu.edu.

Stephanie Gerretsen, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Scholar

Stephanie Gerretsen is a postdoctoral research scholar for Global Sport Institute. Her research interests lie in the intersection of sport, urban planning and development, and public policy. Prior to joining the Global Sport Institute, Stephanie served as an urban policy consultant at UN-Habitat in Nairobi, Kenya where she worked within the National Urban Policy Programme on several country projects, in addition to producing various normative products on the development and monitoring and evaluation of urban acupuncture projects, mainstreaming public health matters in national urban policies, and integrating the private sector in urban development projects.

Stephanie Gerretsen holds a PhD from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She also holds a Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning with a concentration in Global and Comparative Planning for Developing Countries from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a dual Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Biological Anthropology from the University of California, San Diego. She can be reached at sgerrets@asu.edu.

Aidan Corrales

Marketing and Communications Assistant

Aidan is a Marketing and Communications Assistant at Global Sport Institute. He is an Arizona native and is in his third year pursuing a degree in Sports Business with expected graduation in the Fall of 2022.

Rini Jain

Research and Entrepreneurship Programs Assistant

Kate Nelson

Events and Programs Assistant

Kate is an Events and Programs Assistant at Global Sports Institute. She is working towards her undergraduate degree in marketing and digital communications and plans to graduate in the spring of 2024.

Robert W. Turner II, PhD

Global Sport Visiting Scholar

As a visiting fellow, Robert W. Turner II helps leadership identify potential topics of research, conducts research with the Global Sport Lab, and contributes to Global Sport Matters and Institute events.

Robert W. Turner II is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Clinical Research and Leadership at The George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Science. He earned his Ph.D. in sociology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He also holds a position as a Research Scientist in the Center for Biobehavioral Health Disparities Research at Duke University. After attending James Madison University on an athletic scholarship, Dr. Turner played football professionally in the now-defunct United States Football League, the Canadian Football League, and briefly in the National Football League. Dr. Turner is an active member of his local church and serves on the board of directors for the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington, D.C.

Luke Padwe

Digital Communications Assistant

Luke is a Digital Communications Assistant at the Global Sport Institute. He is an Arizona native and is in his second year pursuing a degree in Graphic Design with expected graduation in the Spring of 2024.

Emily Rosenthal

Research Programs Assistant

Emily Rosenthal is a third-year undergraduate student studying Business Global Politics, Cross-Sector Leadership, and Turkish. Her focus is on International Policy and Human Rights. She is expected to graduate in Spring 2022.