Brian Cole is an MBA ’07 from the University of Oregon's Warsaw Sports Marketing Center. While obtaining his MBA, he spent significant time benefiting from the courses, mentoring, networking opportunities, and business plan competitions available through the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship. He also received a BBA ’02 in Actuarial Science and Risk Management & Insurance from the University of Wisconsin.
Brian's background in the sports industry includes working in business development for the Boston Celtics, a financial modeling project for the University of Oregon Athletic Department, and independent consulting projects focused on sponsorship best practices and evaluation.
As a former consulting actuary, Brian brings a vast array of knowledge in financial management including budgeting and forecasting business segments worth over a half billion dollars. He also has significant experience developing customized tools to analyze these pieces of business.
Innovative Sports Strategies (ISS) is a product of the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship. While taking part in the 2006-07 New Venture courses offered by the LCE, ISS created a business plan that received numerous awards at nationally recognized business plan competitions. Also during this time, the LCE faculty provided critical guidance and encouragement that resulted in the official launch of the business as an S-Corporation in May 2007. Shortly thereafter, ISS closed its first of an anticipated two rounds of financing which will provide the funds necessary to take its flagship software product, Elevation, from a concept to commercial software.
ISS is an emerging solutions provider in the sports industry. ISS provides clients with results that increase business efficiency and improve the quality of information available to decision-makers. Currently ISS is developing a web-based financial management software, Elevation, for college athletic departments and professional sports teams.
Elevation will provide users with a more efficient way to organize, coordinate, and analyze the various spreadsheets business managers and coaches use for budgeting, forecasting, reporting, and monitoring their business. Highlights of Elevation include:
Integrated budgeting worksheets that allow coaches and administrators to enter data into one system where users can apply a matrix of growth factors to forecast various potential financial possibilities.
Streamlined financial reporting that completes NCAA, Department of Education, and league-wide reporting at the push of a button.
Real-time dashboard indicators to monitor business categories according to industry suggested indicators as well as internal measurements.
Access to industry benchmarking to compare peer data by conference, league, region, budget size, etc.
The content of Elevation is driven by the input of future users. During the formation of ISS and throughout software development, ISS has received valuable input and interest from athletic departments at The Ohio State University, University of Oregon, and University of Wisconsin as well as from professional sports teams such as the Boston Celtics, Green Bay Packers, New York Giants, Portland Trail Blazers, Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, Seattle Mariners, Seattle Seahawks, and many others.
ISS is in position to deliver Elevation to the market during the second half of 2008 and looks forward to providing clients with additional business solutions.
