Pac12 Names Harry Hardy as Conferences FirstEver Chief Commercial & Growth Officer

The Pac 12 has appointed its first ever Chief Commercial & Growth Officer, completing the executive search led by Elevate, as part of the conference's new commercial strategy for Pac-12 Enterprises. With Harry Hardy set to officially begin this week, the Pac-12 will continue advancing and building the league's commercial platform in order to best activate and scale its business efforts. The appointment of Hardy and partnership with Elevate to develop this commercial plan reinforce the Pac-12's commitment to building a modern, athlete-first business model.

Hardy joins the Pac-12 with nearly 20 years of experience building commercial growth across leagues, teams, and agencies in sports. Most recently, Hardy served as Senior Vice President of Team Commercial Operations and Development at LIV Golf, tasked to drive commercial growth across the league's team business. He previously led the commercial strategy and sponsor partnerships for Major League Rugby as its Chief Commercial Officer, building on an earlier career with Octagon where he also held leadership roles within the agency's owned-and-operated events team and managed and marketed a portfolio of athlete clients. His expertise will help the conference build and scale the centralized commercial platform at the heart of the conference's full business reset.

In the newly created Chief Commercial & Growth Officer role, Hardy will serve as a senior executive focused on helping shape the conference's future commercial growth strategy alongside Commissioner Teresa Gould. The role follows her recent hires of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Scott Adametz from Epic Games, the first CTO position ever for an FBS conference, Chief Financial Officer Kendall Tyson from the NHL, and Senior Vice President, Deputy Commissioner Rick Hart from SMU, further signaling the Pac-12's commitment to building a modern enterprise. The search for the Chief Commercial & Growth Officer was led by Elevate's Kyle Bowlsby.

Today's announcement is about our league and members moving forward with intention, says Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould. The traditional conference model has not kept pace with the value created by athletes, schools, and fans, and we are building a new strategy that puts that value in the right place. Our commercial strategy will diversify our business for long-term sustainability while driving our brand, our revenue, and value for our student-athletes. Harry has a proven track record of helping organizations establish new commercial models and identities during periods of significant change, and we are thrilled to have his leadership as we do the same for the next era of the Pac-12.

At the center of the Pac-12's strategy is a new, centralized commercial platform built on alignment across all member institutions, positioning the Pac-12 as the most innovative challenger conference in the country. The league will also leverage a 42,000-square-foot media production facility - already utilized across a spectrum of collegiate and professional teams and leagues - to evolve beyond a traditional in-house production facility into a broader technology-enabled, sports media and innovation company. Elevate acted as the Pac-12's strategic partner, supporting enterprise strategy, revenue optimization, business planning, and execution.

The league's presidents and athletic directors aligned behind this transformation to give the conference a full scale modernization strategy capable of meeting the pace and complexity of college sports and the sports business world today. That alignment is intended to help the conference simplify decision-making, move faster, and build a commercial model that can adjust as the college landscape evolves. The work builds on early momentum, including the Pac-12's partnership with Genius Sports and a broader brand launch centered on athletes.

For Elevate, the assignment builds on a college athletics practice that spans universities, conferences, venues, sponsorship, ticketing, media, data, and executive search, giving the Pac-12 a comprehensive agency partner with experience across the commercial levers now reshaping the sector. Elevate's charge was to partner with the Pac-12 to create an integrated commercial engine for the conference, connecting strategy, data, technology, and executive search to drive long-term value and create new revenue streams.

The Pac 12 is taking on one of the most ambitious commercial transformations in college sports, and they're doing it with clarity and alignment, says Jonathan Marks, Chief Business Officer of Elevate's college practice. We're proud to support the Pac 12 as it enters this new chapter, helping build the enterprise engine that will drive the conference's modernization and long term growth.

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2026/10/21/pac-12-names-harry-hardy-as-con...
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