Name Sam Kennedy | ||
Profiles | ||
Samuel H. Kennedy (born 1973) is an American professional baseball executive who is the president and CEO of the Boston Red Sox of Major League Baseball.
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Kennedy has been a member of the baseball club's upper management hierarchy since March 2002. He was named the successor to longtime Red Sox president Larry Lucchino on August 1, 2015, when Lucchino announced his decision to retire from his executive positions with the team at the close of the 2015 Boston Red Sox season. Lucchino's chief executive officer post was initially left vacant, and on August 18, 2015, the Red Sox also named veteran MLB executive Dave Dombrowski to the new position of president, baseball operations. On August 2, 2017, the Red Sox and Fenway Sports Management announced Kennedy's appointment as chief executive officer, and signed him to a new five-year contract as both CEO and president.
Prior to August 2015, Kennedy had been the Red Sox' executive vice president and chief operating officer and president of Fenway Sports Management since May 2009.
Early life and education
The son of an Episcopal priest, Kennedy is a native of Brookline, Massachusetts. He attended Brookline High School and was a classmate of Theo Epstein, the general manager of the Red Sox from 2003–11 (and, since then, president, baseball operations, of the Chicago Cubs). At Brookline High School, Kennedy was captain of both the boys' hockey and baseball teams. He then attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he played baseball and football and earned a bachelor's degree in 1995.
Career
After an internship with the New York Yankees in 1995, and a period in advertising sales with two major New York City radio stations, WABC and WFAN, Kennedy returned to baseball in 1996 with the San Diego Padres, where he worked under Lucchino and was reunited with Epstein. Kennedy began his San Diego career as an account executive, and had risen to executive director/corporate accounts and broadcasting when (along with Lucchino and, eventually, Epstein) he joined the Red Sox front office during the 2001–02 offseason upon the team's purchase by Fenway Sports Group (FSG). He rose from vice president/sales and corporate partnerships to senior vice president/sales and marketing to executive vice president/chief marketing officer before becoming the Red Sox' evp/chief operating officer.
Kennedy also worked to enlarge the footprint of the parent Fenway Sports Group. In 2004, working under chief operating officer Mike Dee, he was tasked with the creation of Fenway Sports Management, a sports marketing agency that operates under the aegis of FSG, where he has served as president since Dee's 2009 departure. In 2010 Kennedy also was involved in FSG's purchase of the Premier League association football club Liverpool F.C., with Fenway Sports Management placed in charge of expanding Liverpool F.C.'s global "commercial operations." He was considered for top-level positions in sports management outside Boston and baseball, including a possible higher-management role with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment in Toronto, prior to the 2015 season.
He resides in Wellesley, Massachusetts.