Leadership Lessons From Volleyball Legend Kerri Walsh Jennings and Eventbrite CEO Julia Hartz

The speaker, HB, a former professional beach volleyball player, reflects on her transition into the business world. Despite a successful athletic career, the professional volleyball market began to devalue athletes, prompting her to take action. She founded P1440, a youth-to-pro volleyball arm, and is developing two professional ventures: MLV NorCal and Hero Volley, a beach volleyball pro festival. Her goal is to create a sustainable career path for athletes in America, preventing them from having to play overseas for low pay. She emphasizes the need for volleyball to become mainstream, akin to the Olympics or NBA, to provide a true career for athletes. Drawing parallels to her experience as CEO of Eventbrite, where she doubled the company's revenue and headcount, she recounts navigating the challenges of the 2020 pandemic. Faced with negative revenue, she rallied her team, creating a one-page business plan by asking what they would do if they could start over. This proactive approach led to rebuilding the company. She seeks advice on how to best contribute to her projects, particularly in creating a professional space for volleyball. She envisions a pyramid structure with Team USA at the top, followed by collegiate and youth opportunities, with a crucial "pro" space directly beneath the top. The discussion shifts to Eventbrite's strategy, which avoided competing with both basic RSVP platforms and major ticketing companies like Live Nation and Ticketmaster, instead focusing on the "fatty middle" of the market. She highlights the importance of understanding what drives fan support, such as aspiration and community, and the power of storytelling in women's sports. She shares her personal rituals for centering and grounding herself: breathing, meditating, journaling, and spending time in nature. Her unique strength is "enthusiastic endurance," which she believes is crucial for business leaders. She advises against trying to be strategic if it doesn't align with one's natural strengths, suggesting that her athletic preparation can be applied to her business endeavors. The key is to be original, create unique inroads for fans, and not worry about emulating other leagues or their pitfalls.