NHL leaders discuss the initiatives and programs the League is doing to create experiences throughout the hockey ecosystem that are welcoming and inclusive of all communities.
Jeff Scott
Vice President, Community Development and Growth, NHL
Jeff Scott is a Sports Management Executive with over 18 years of experience leading community investment and youth sports development strategies and initiatives across the NBA and NHL. Well regarded as a motivational leader who is truly passionate about leveraging sports to create aspirational opportunities for multicultural youth and underrepresented communities, Jeff has consistently established the vision for the way companies must engage local communities.
Currently, as Vice President of Community Development and Growth for the National Hockey League – the premier professional ice hockey league in the world – Jeff supports and creates the league’s mission and strategies which focuses on changing the global conversation about hockey, making it the acknowledged standard for sports experiences that are inclusive, accessible, enjoyable and community-friendly.
Through continued efforts, Jeff also positively influences and impacts the philanthropic and community investment decisions of all 32 NHL Clubs, Minor Hockey affiliates and Youth Hockey organizations relating to culture, youth participation, social impact and sustainability.
A husband and father of two children, Jeff earned a B.A. in Sociology from Wofford College, where he was also a four-year letter winner and two-year team captain on the football team.
Brian Blake
Senior Director, Diversity & Inclusion, NHL
Brian Blake is the National Hockey League’s first Senior Director of Diversity and Inclusion. In this capacity, Brian builds a more robust employee engagement strategy across the league. He leads efforts in advising NHL Clubs on best practices in recruitment, culture and growth strategies with diverse audiences.
Previously, Brian was the founding principal of Learning & Leadership Development at Blake Solutions, a management consultancy that provided innovative employee engagement strategies to the private industry and government. Brian’s practice area was particularly focused on learning solutions and initiatives related to diversity and inclusion, adopting an inclusive mindset, understanding unconscious bias, and leveraging our differences as an asset.
Before Blake Solutions, Brian served as Senior Consultant of Learning & Organizational Development and Diversity & Inclusion at Turner (now Warner Media). In this capacity, Brian provided thought leadership and advisory services to senior executives across the New York region, including Advertising Sales, CNN, and TruTV. Here he focused on organizational transformation, team effectiveness, leadership and management development, and cultural strategy development. Brian helped Turner “re-energize” their efforts around diversity and inclusion – from hiring efforts to mentorship and internship programs to marketing and advertising for multi-cultural audiences.
Brian also spent over a decade in the financial services industry. He served as a Vice President of Organizational Development at Citizens Financial Group, significantly contributing to an HR Division that helped Citizens prepare for and carry out one of the largest initial public offerings (IPO) in U.S. financial services history. He helped directly increase overall organizational effectiveness by consulting with multiple business lines to diagnose people/team effectiveness issues and provide solutions. Before that stint, Brian worked with J.P. Morgan Chase for more than ten years on organizational and employee-level performance initiatives, career mobility, career transition, networking/relationship building, personal branding, conflict resolution and more.
Brian has a law degree from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy from New York University.