Lisa Akerson is the Vice President of Customer Experience at NBC Sports Next, based in Minneapolis, MN.
Lisa has been with NBC Sports Next, previously SportsEngine, since 2019. Prior to NBC Sports Next, Lisa worked in the medical device industry. As an avid user of SportsEngine and Tourney Machine apps, when an opportunity presented itself to come to SportsEngine, she jumped at the chance.
"I'd been a user of the SportsEngine app for years as a parent and then later as a volunteer webmaster. I saw the benefit of being able to organize all of my kids' activities in one convenient location. I also have witnessed the benefits of youth sports, such as being a good team member, working hard, and focusing on achieving a goal. Deciding to work at this amazing company was one of the best decisions I've made in my career!"
Today Lisa leads all non-revenue customer-facing teams. This includes five department leaders, 110 team members, and over 20 contractors (both local and offshore). Her team's mission is to ensure administrators, coaches, volunteers, and parents have a positive experience using the SportsEngine suite. "We want families to spend their time focusing on sport, not the administration of sport, and every day my team and I think about how we can make that easier," said Lisa. "Our departments work together to provide our customers the best possible platform, experience, and outcomes. No one within the company is ever too busy to drop what they are doing if customers need our assistance. We rally around each other to ensure we have the right solution in a timely manner!"
A typical day for Lisa includes strategy meetings with leadership stakeholders. They are always looking for ways to improve both the administrator and parent/player experience within our platforms. Interdepartmental collaboration is key to success—Product, Marketing, Sales, and Operations all work to proactively address the feedback through informal conversations and formal like NPS.
We ask all of our profiled employees to tell us a little about themselves however they'd like to put that together; Lisa came back with a haiku. So here's Lisa in her own words.
"Passionate colleague.
Mother of two teenagers.
Collaborator."
| Family | Married with two children - 18 and 16, two Labrador Retreivers (Murphy and Cooper) |
| Alma Mater | St. Cloud State University - BS, Capella University - MBA |
| Favorite Sport (who do you cheer for?) | SKOL Vikings! |
| Olympic medal you'd like to win | The little girl in me who walked to the outdoor skating rink almost every evening growing up would say Figure Skating. |
| Little known facts about you | I performed musical theater in college (Godspell and Dames at Sea) and danced at a local studio from 3-18. |
| Social Media |
About Rob Bedeaux
Rob Bedeaux is a Marketing Director for NBC Sports Next and Fandango as well as a content contributor for the SportsEngine.com website. He is active with many customers and currently the Communications Director for Minneapolis Youth Lacrosse. Rob is the author of two award-winning children's books, Kids Guide to the Tokyo Olympics & Kids Guide to the Winter Games, both are available for download for free at www.sportsengine.com/kids-guide
Rob has been involved in publishing and website production since Geocities ruled the roost and 300 bps modems were blazing fast.
Connect with Rob Bedeaux
