Tag Archives: Steve O’Donnell

NASCAR Promotes Executives to Leadership Roles

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Phelps and O’Donnell Take on Broad Leadership Roles and Top Posts in Charlotte Region

Stefanyshyn, Pemberton Promoted

NASCAR announced today it has elevated the responsibilities of Steve Phelps and Steve O’Donnell with both assuming leadership roles in NASCAR’s Charlotte region offices effective immediately. The moves are designed to balance the company’s senior leadership across NASCAR’s various offices and accelerate the implementation of several key growth initiatives.

“In Steve Phelps and Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR has two seasoned leaders who are highly respected throughout the industry and have records of success in leading key functions within NASCAR,” said NASCAR Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Brian France. “Our strong teams in Charlotte and Concord are engaged in many efforts critical to the sport’s future and we’re confident having these two leaders at the helm on a day-to-day basis will accelerate projects and help us drive innovation for the future.”

Phelps, NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, now will lead the company’s operations at NASCAR Plaza in Uptown Charlotte. Phelps, who will continue to report to NASCAR Chief Operating Officer Brent Dewar, retains all of his current responsibilities which include oversight of Brand Marketing, Integrated Marketing Communications, NASCAR Digital Media and NASCAR Properties. As part of this move, Phelps now also will assume oversight of Licensing, as well as Entertainment Marketing to bolster integration between the Los Angeles-based division and the other marketing and content disciplines operating primarily out of Charlotte.

O’Donnell assumes leadership of NASCAR’s Research & Development Center in Concord, North Carolina. Reporting to NASCAR President Mike Helton, O’Donnell has been named Executive Vice President & Chief Racing Development Officer and will add oversight of all operations in Concord, including Racing Development and Innovation, as well as Competition. O’Donnell maintains oversight of Racing Operations, Industry Services, Green Innovation, Touring / Weekly Series and Membership Services in addition to his new responsibilities.

Gene Stefanyshyn, who leads NASCAR’s Racing Development and Innovation group, and Robin Pemberton, who heads the Competition department, both have been promoted to senior vice president and now will report to O’Donnell.  Additionally, Tom Swindell who has played a key role on several recent Racing Operations initiatives has been assigned to Concord where he will work closely with O’Donnell on short- and long-term development projects.

Stefanyshyn, who joined NASCAR in May 2013, has made an immediate impact on the company in leading the transformation and modernization of NASCAR’s rules package development, testing and parts approval processes and set in motion a number of innovation projects for future racing development.  Pemberton, a long-time crew chief in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, has played a key role in the evolution of NASCAR’s officiating model, qualifying procedures and championship format since his arrival at NASCAR in 2004.

“Gene and Robin both bring invaluable experience and unique expertise to our team in Concord, and we are enjoying some of the best competition ever in NASCAR due to their efforts,” said O’Donnell. “We are constantly looking to improve and while we have very good momentum on an array of projects, we believe we can make an already strong product even better in a variety of ways for the industry and most importantly, for the fans.”

 

Enhancements to NASCAR Penalty Structure, Appeals Process

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Robin Pemberton

Deterrence, Appeal Changes Aimed Toward Better Effectiveness, More Transparency

As part of its wide-ranging initiatives to transform its competition model, NASCAR today announced enhancements to its penalty structure and appeals process beginning this season. In addition to these changes, NASCAR also announced the appointment of a Final Appeals Officer for the sport.  Continue reading →

NASCAR Announces Initiative to Transform Competition and Fan Experience

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(L-R) Robin Pemberton, NASCAR Vice President, CompetitionGene Stefanyshyn, NASCAR Vice President, Innovation and Racing DevelopmentSteve O'Donnell, NASCAR Senior Vice President, Racing Operations speak to the media at NASCAR Research & Development Center on July 15, 2013 Photo - Street Lecka/Getty Images

(L-R) Robin Pemberton, NASCAR Vice President, CompetitionGene Stefanyshyn, NASCAR Vice President, Innovation and Racing DevelopmentSteve O’Donnell, NASCAR Senior Vice President, Racing Operations speak to the media at NASCAR Research & Development Center on July 15, 2013
Photo – Street Lecka/Getty Images

Fans are you ready for the future of NASCAR? NASCAR executives are preparing to take fans and competition to the next level.

NASCAR is recognized as a sports leader in bringing fans closer to the experience both at the track and to those watching from home. And today NASCAR reinforced their goal of constantly improving their core product by announcing their launch of a wide-ranging initiative to transform its Competition and in turn, enhance the fan experience.

This initiative began in 2012 with direction from NASCAR CEO, Brian France, as a careful evaluation of Competition, with a world-class consulting firm, who has worked with about every major sport in America and globally, McKinsey & Company. Also brought on for this project is automotive executive Brent Dewar.

“…this really started back in May or June of last year with Brian asking NASCAR to really lead in the technology and innovation space,” said Steve O’Donnell. “So we started out, a group of us, going out to a number of the leaders in the technology space from a company standpoint.  We met with a lot of the leading universities in the U.S., as well, and gathered some data as to what are some of the new emerging technologies, what could we be at NASCAR’s research and development center, and from there really applied that to what we have in place today and how we needed to change or evolve to become worldwide leaders in the innovation space. That led us obviously to the guy on my right with the hiring of Gene Stefanyshyn and initiatives that we’re looking at today.”

A steering committed led by Mike Helton, Steve O’Donnell, Gene Stefanyshyn, Robin Pemberton and Steve Phelps created and guided four internal ‘working teams’ to create a blueprint accomplishing their goal of transforming Competition in four key areas of Rules, Governance, Deterrence/Penalties and Officiating/Inspection.

There have been two primary goals from the outset – continue to modernize Competition by injecting science and technology into all of their operations – as Brian France has repeatedly declared – and position NASCAR as a leader in the sports and entertainment marketplace of the future Continue reading →