NEW YORK – Catalyst. Go-to. Trailblazer.
Those are all qualities that Katy Feeney embodied during her four-decade tenure at MLB, and they were a common refrain at the Katy Feeney Leadership Awards on Thursday. Thirty-two women, representing all 30 MLB clubs, MLB Network and the MLB league office, were nominated by their respective employers to participate in a day-long workshop of professional development and networking at the MLB headquarters in Manhattan.
The participants’ tenures with their organizations varied from three years to 40 years, and the women represented a breadth of departments, including HR, product, operations and legal.
“This event is incredibly important for two reasons,” said April Brown, senior vice president of social responsibility and diversity at MLB. “We get to celebrate the leadership and legacy of Katy Feeney, a trailblazer in baseball, and we get to empower the women across the league who have their own roles at each club and at Major League Baseball, and have this opportunity to exhibit their own leadership and their own skills.”
Now in their eighth year, the Katy Feeney Leadership Awards honor a woman who lived, breathed and passed along her love for baseball right up until her passing in 2017 at age 68. Feeney came from a notable lineage – her father, Charles Feeney, was National League president from 1969-86, and his grandfather, Charles Stoneham, owned the Giants from 1919-36. She started at MLB in the 1970s, and by the time she retired in 2016, she was the league’s SVP of scheduling and club relations.
But Feeney was more than just a schedule point person. She was a beloved presence at the All-Star Game and the World Series, helping to keep events running smoothly. She was a mentor to many, having started in baseball during a time when she did not have many women peers. She made things easier for others, and always with her signature accessory: her fabulous hats.
“For me, it's really important to show up as you are, and I think Katy Feeney did exactly that,” said Bree Brown, HR generalist for the Guardians. “Every video that was shown of her, she had on a different hat. She had all these accessories and all these fun clothes. … I think that she showed up unapologetically herself, and that has inspired me to show up unapologetically myself.”
After participants mingled over breakfast, proceedings began with opening remarks from reps from MLB and the Sports and Entertainment Impact Collective, who helped structure the programming. One poignant aspect of these introductions was the absence of Billy Bean, who served as MLB’s SVP of diversity, equity and inclusion and passed away from leukemia last August at age 60.
“This initiative is extra special, because I know it used to be one of Billy's favorite [programs],” said Catalina Villegas, director of diversity, equity & inclusion at MLB. “He was a huge advocate for women's initiatives and did so much for women in baseball and for us to advance our career.”
The participants then created a “human map” to introduce themselves and bring their coast-to-coast presence to life. From there, they engaged in interactive workshops about team building, leading with confidence and how to craft and tell their own stories. Through all of the day’s activities, Feeney’s influence was felt, even by those who had never met her.
“Katy is a trailblazer for the industry. She stands for mentorship, she stands for leadership, she stands for work ethic,” said Myra Palacios, assistant vice president of events for the Rangers. "And those are all things that I hope to embody. … I take a lot of pride in being a mentor for the team. And so with this I want to empower them even more.”
The day concluded with a panel moderated by MLB and NHL Network host Lauren Gardner and featuring three prominent women at MLB: SVP of baseball enterprise Marianne Boak, intellectual property counsel Chanel Lattimer and CMO and SVP of global partnerships Uzma Rawn. They discussed topics of building a personal “board of directors,” AI in the workplace, mentorship vs. sponsorship, work-life balance and more for women in baseball.
One common theme was the idea that women hold themselves back from pursuing opportunities that might be a reach or that they think might not fit into their future plans. The panelists spoke to pushing past self-doubt and advocating for themselves and others as they would want people to advocate for them.
“Surround yourself with people that can educate you, that can teach you, that you're open to learning as well,” Rawn said. “Make sure that you are confident in what you are bringing to the table, and be open to learning the things that you don't know so that you can continue to grow.”
In the spirit of Feeney’s lifelong devotion to mentorship, this year’s honorees will have three additional virtual learning sessions to strengthen the community that Thursday's event helped build.
“It's incredibly important to recognize female leaders in our sport so that we continue to have more, so that they can continue to connect with one another and lead a path for those who want to follow,” April Brown said. “It's the best example when you have a female leader that then opens a door for others and helps to improve our sport and to make our sport the best.”