Sports Illustrated and Empower Onyx highlight the journey of diverse black women across sports—from veteran athletes, to emerging stars, coaches, executives, and more—in the series, Elle-evate: 100 Black Women Influenced in Sports.
Jocelyn Monroe is a goalscorer. He saw a dream, took aim, and hit the mark: mission accomplished. The accomplished entertainment and sports marketing expert wants nothing more than to share that golden touch with his clients. Making their dreams come true and implementing systems for the next generation of business leaders at the Creative Artist Agency (CAA) is something he looks forward to every day.
From her days working for public relations pioneer and personal brand builder Terrie Williams, Monroe has had one passion—to garner the highest level of trust and respect from her clients. And whether it’s serving as a link between an international mega-brand and the NBA, or helping to shape and build a DEI at the CAA, Monroe jumps ahead and stays focused on mastering what lies ahead.
The coveted Madison Square Garden is where Albany State College (bachelor of marketing), and North Carolina State University graduate (master of sports management) took their small steps to becoming an executive in the world of sports. Not bad for her first job as a marketing representative, a role that brought her to the Terrie Williams Agency, where she was brought in to start agency sports; Allan Houston Company; and then the Chinese sports brand Li-Ning, where he was the catalyst for the first-ever deal between China and the NBA.
After stints at Coca-Cola and OMD USA, Monroe landed at what many consider a dream company, CAA. In his role as the mastermind behind entertainment and sports marketing, Monroe said his focus now is on building the diversity of the CAA. “I have a passion for really wanting to see young women like myself, who sit in smaller institutions, become more aware of what jobs are available to them,” said Monroe, who, along with a colleague on the CAA golf team, started to build a conversation about diversity.
These discussions led to CAA recruiting a new head of global inclusion strategy. “My personal part in this framework is going to the HBCU campus and talking to students at the business and communication school about my journey,” he said. “And to let them know that there is an opportunity for them to connect with this organization if they are interested.”
Another step in the Monroe process is strengthening CAA’s “Explore”, a weekend-based virtual program where students can hear from different CAA executives. “This is the goal of my job,” says Monroe, who joined the agency in 2018. “And if you’re interested in what you hear from our team, the next step is to consider our internship program. So we’re trying to generate end-to-end connectivity to create opportunities for students who may not even know they exist.”
Embracing connectivity has been a key channel of Monroe’s success. When he was ready to leave Allan Houston Enterprises, he decided that the corporate sector would be his next target. Yvette Chavis, a good friend who was working in the NBA at the time, knew that Monroe would be a perfect fit for an important role in Li-Ning (“Nike of China”). Securing this position would not only change Monroe’s life, it would also change the relationship between the NBA and international sports marketing relationships.
China’s biggest sporting goods brand, at the time, needed help working with US players and understanding their culture. Monroe is the ideal liaison. Chavis told him that “to really take advantage of and be able to work well with the NBA, Li-Ning needed someone in America who could be their liaison and guide them through how to work in the American market.”
As US marketing manager for Li-Ning, Monroe laid the groundwork for becoming the first Chinese-owned company to sponsor the NBA. Now these are great memories, but at the time, Monroe was afraid of the opportunity. Nevertheless, he carefully and strategically made the most of it.
“That was probably my first real understanding of selling myself, my ideas and what I bring to the table,” he said. “These are people who don’t know who I am. They didn’t know who Terrie Williams was, and the school I went to meant nothing to them. I sell what’s in front of them. Me and my brain.”
He went on to explain that “Chinese culture wants to connect with you in ways that are not just outside of business. They want to feel like we are working as a family. That’s very important to them,” Monroe said. “I am a Southern girl from a small town in Georgia, who works with national brands, and international brands based in China. I may be a foreign concept to them as a human.”
In the end, he made Li-Ning executives feel very competent and that helped set the right foundation for success in the US market. Monroe made her next career move to OMD Worldwide before the first US deal Li-Ning signed. However, he has opened the floodgates for this international relationship, which led to sports icon Shaquille O’Neal leaving Reebok and signing for Li-Ning. Retired basketball sensation Dwayne Wade celebrates his 10th year in partnership with the brand. “I’m trying to help them lay a good foundation where they can get noticed and really build a brand as a viable opportunity for American athletes on a national scale,” Monroe said.
Coca-Cola’s former marketing manager also dabbled in entertainment with some of the music industry’s biggest names long before they became multi-Grammy award winners. “We made a music series called ‘Uncapped’ and featured artists who were not well known at the time like Frank Ocean and Kendrick Lamar,” he said. “Kendrick performed on a small stage for 175 people at an indoor skate park in Portland at a very early stage in his career when no one knew who he was. It was a great opportunity to be able to harness the power of Coca-Cola and work on a brand that is doing amazing things.”
Nissan College 100 at OMD Worldwide was another first career that allowed Monroe to begin to focus on HBCU and its diversity mission. He worked on 100 Japanese car brand deals with 100 different schools over a span of six to eight weeks. At the time, it was the biggest deal in collegiate sports. “I think we have all the Power 5 conferences in the country,” he said. “We include all 22 sports, and we have five or six HBCUs.”
A former high school cheerleader and member of the college dance team, continues to support the next generation of executives and help them achieve their dream careers as her mentor prepared for success. People like Jeannette Solomon, who worked for Monroe during her college days, and who inspired her to do whatever she wanted in life; and Darryl Cobbin, the former Coca-Cola executive who was key to creating the Sprite’s slogan “Follow Your Thirst”, has played a major role in his life. “They just opened their treasure trove of knowledge and said, ‘I am available to you.'”
And he had the intention to keep that legacy strong. “I want people to look back and say that because Jocelyn was here, someone else had a chance,” Monroe said. “The diversity path is very important to me because it opens up opportunities for students of color to enter and be successful. And when I say we make people’s dreams come true, I take it seriously. I want to work with someone in such a way that they want to pay for it and open up opportunities for other people who are like me.”
Bryna Jean-Marie is a contributor to Empower Onyx, a multi-channel, multi-channel platform that celebrates the stories and transformative power of sport for black women and girls.
