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Ben leads our headquarters in New York City, focusing on corporate sponsorships for clients and new business development for Leverage Agency. He has vast experience in the areas of global sports and entertainment marketing, creative sponsorship activation and media relations through his work with the Olympics and numerous sports and entertainment events around the world. Before co-founding Leverage Agency, Ben was the Director of Marketing for Bennett Global Marketing Group, where he worked on sponsorships and event marketing for clients including Dunkin' Donuts, Reebok, Manchester United and Level Vodka. Prior to Bennett Global, Ben initiated and managed Lycos' marketing endorsement with Anna Kournikova, and worked to develop and implement the multi-platform advertising and promotional campaign “Win Anna’s Stuff’. The Kournikova/Lycos campaign was recognized as one of the top consumer launches of the year in 2000 from PR Week magazine. Ben also conceived the "Watch a Championship With a Champion" sweepstakes featuring Mark McGwire and John Elway. This program returned over 500% ROI (media value versus expense) for both sponsors, Taco Bell and Verizon. During the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia, he managed Lycos' global sponsorship. Ben represented Lycos in the athlete village booking and producing more than 20 live online chat events with gold medal Olympic athletes. Ben has worked with major television networks, including NBC and ESPN at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, The X Games and the Australian Open. He spent a year in Australia working for the Sydney Olympic Committee's media and marketing group. Additionally, Ben has worked for the USTA media department for the Davis Cup and U.S. Open tennis tournaments.
At Leverage Agency, Ben has secured sponsorships with numerous companies such as GM Hummer, Edge Shaving Gel, Subway, Progressive Insurance, Dodge, Gillette and Nissan among many others totaling over $30 million dollars in sponsorship sales. Leverage Agency was chosen by Gillette as the agency of record for sponsorship, media and integration sales for their national television show "Fast Cars and Superstars The Gillette Young Guns Celebrity Race" which was broadcast on primetime on ABC in 2007 before the NBA Finals. The television show was recognized by AdAge as one of the best uses of branded entertainment for the year. Ben recently lead Leverage's expansion into Asia in 2008 with an exclusive partnership with Prescient Group of Beijing to sell the naming rights and founding partners for the China National Stadium and National Aquatic Center, which are two of the most iconic stadiums in the world.
Ben has been named NYC Entrepreneur of the month in TrueNYC.com and has been interviewed and featured on ESPN, NBC, CNBC and USA TODAY as an expert in sports and entertainment sponsorship. Ben also enjoys teaching and mentoring students and giving back to the community. He teaches Sports Marketing as a part time adjunct professor at NYU. Ben also serves on the Board of Directors for The U.S. Sports Film Festival, Carnegie Sports Group and volunteers with The Manhattan Jewish Experience (MJE) Foundation and the William J. Clinton Foundation. He earned his bachelor's degree with Cum Laude honors from Boston University's College of Communication and played on BU's division one tennis team.
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