Collegiate athletic league the Pac-10 Conference has hired Danette Leighton as its first CMO. The appointment is effective April 5.
Leighton will be responsible for the conference’s marketing and PR and will work at its Walnut Creek, CA headquarters. The league is the athletic home of 10 teams from West Coast universities including the University of Southern California, the University of Oregon and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Leighton currently works for Maloof Sports & Entertainment, owner of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings and Arco Arena, as VP of marketing and brand development. She previously worked in PR for the Pac-10.
Larry Scott, commissioner of the Pac-10, said in a statement that Leighton has “amassed a wealth of marketing and business operations experience in both men’s and women’s professional and collegiate athletics, and those skills will be significant as we move forward with the transformation of the Pac-10 in the coming months and years.”
Prior to nearly a decade overseeing marketing for the Kings and Arco Arena, as well as the business operations of the WNBA’s Sacramento Monarchs, Leighton led Sony’s sports marketing division with emphasis on the PGA Tour’s Sony Open.
She also served as executive director of the 1999 NCAA Women’s Basketball Final Four at Stanford University. She has also worked in PR for the Fiesta Bowl.
