Sports, Women & Data: How to Stay in the Championship Mindset

Alexa Knierim is an Olympic American Pair skater. She won 3 US Championship titles with her husband, Chris Knierim. They represented USA at the 2018 Olympic Games in Peyonchang where they brought home a bronze medal. She is currently skating with Brandon Frazier and won her 4th title with him in 2021.The new duo is preparing for the Beijing trials in January 2022. Alexa lives and trains in Irvine, California. Her husband and her have 2 cats and 2 large dogs.

Jill Marchick pursues the art and science of decoding consumer behavior. For the past two decades, she has used her skills to achieve strategic growth and profitability goals for multinational companies in diverse global markets.

Jill joined Pacers Sports & Entertainment in March 2020 as the Vice President of Customer Insights & Engagement. She focuses on fan and employee understanding to help inform strategic planning and execution across the PS&E family of brands.

Prior to joining Pacers Sport & Entertainment, Jill led Consumer Insights at Aramark where she identified consumers’ preferences, thought processes and behaviors for clients and internal teams to increase engagement and sales.

In addition, Jill spent more than ten years with global responsibilities at The Hershey Company and Starbucks, directing a variety of research efforts in Asia, North America, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East.

Jill also worked in Marketing at the McDonald’s Corporation. She began her career in Research & Planning at the global advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather.

Originally from Northern California, Jill received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of California, San Diego.

Tembi leads Peloton’s Enterprise Data team. She is responsible for the delivery of global best-in-class data integration, masterdata management, metadata management, and operational data services solutions. Tembi is also Peloton’s data quality technology partner.

Prior to joining Peloton, Tembi led the data governance practice at boutique consulting firm, CrossCountry Consulting. She was a trusted advisor to various Fortune 500 clients as they stood up data strategy frameworks and embarked on the journey to data fidelity.
Tembi joined CrossCountry Consulting from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s treasury function, where she had transitioned from accounting giant, PwC.

Tembi holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of South Africa, and an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua school of business. She is a former member of the EDMC Women-in-Data leadership team as the global content lead, is a former board member of the Notes in Motion dance company and has held advisor roles in various technology start-ups that provide innovative solutions to causes she is passionate about.

Caroline Silby, Ph.D holds a Doctorate and master’s degree of Sports Psychology from the University of Virginia. She is a nationally recognized expert on the development of elite athletes, author of, Games Girls Play: Understanding and Guiding Young Female Athletes (St. Martin’s Press, 2000, 2001), contributing author to, A Smart Girls Guide: Sports and Fitness: How to Use Your Body and Mind To Play and Feel Your Best (American Girl Company, February, 2018), Sport Science of Figure Skating (Routledge, 2018), The Young Female Athlete (Boston Children’s Hospital Harvard & Springer Publishing, May 2016), Sports Secrets and Spirit Stuff (American Girl). She served for twelve years as adjunct faculty at American University and has worked on an individual basis with three Olympic Gold Medalists, over 20 Olympians, two Paralympian Gold Medalists and pro athletes, as well as hundreds of National Team members and Division I student- athletes, teams, and their coaches. She has worked individually with athletes from a wide variety of sports including football, baseball, soccer, lacrosse, tennis, swimming, gymnastics, muay thai, taekwondo, ice and field hockey, fencing, ski & snowboard, e-sports.

She is currently the head of sport psychology and lead consultant for the US Figure Skating National Team amongst many other sport organizations and most recently served as sport psych consultant for US Figure Skating at the 2018 Olympic Games in PyeongChang. As an elite athlete, Dr. Silby was a member of the National and International Figure Skating Teams. She later served on the U.S. Figure Skating Association Board of Directors, Athlete Advisory Council and Sports Medicine Committee. Dr. Silby was appointed to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee Athlete Advisory Council, Collegiate Sports Council and Finance Committees.

Currently, she serves on the Sports Medicine Committees for the United States Figure Skating Association, is a member of the Medical Advisory Board for American Ballet Theatre, Board of Directors for GirlsUP and most recently a consultant to “Stronger Than You Think” a 3-day Mental Health National Livestream with 60 celebrities and athletes in participation. Previously, she served as President of the Board of the Southwest Women’s Law Center, Education Committee for the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Advisory Board of FabLab, a Fox television series aimed at encouraging girls to become involved in STEM, served as a curriculum creator for Winning Play$, a financial literacy program, and has been a featured speaker for the US Department of State, Sports United program.

In 2019, she was awarded Sport Science Coach Award by the Professional Skater’s Association and recognition of appreciation for service to Olympic Teams in 1996, 2014, 2016 and 2018. Dr. Silby is sought after expert and has appeared on numerous radio and television programs including the Oprah Winfery Show, CNN, Tru-Television, ABC-Wide World of Sports, Oxygen Television, NPR, and the Mitch Albom Show. She resides in Potomac, Maryland where she has an active national practice.

Zaheera is a Vice President of Product Development at Tableau, leading the Data Management team. She is passionate about data, analytics, engineering and has grown teams and shipped numerous features during her 18 year career in technology. Zaheera was born in Kenya and grew up in Toronto, Canada before making the move to Pacific Northwest. She lives in Bellevue, WA with her husband and two sons (2 and 9 years old). She enjoys watching and playing sports with her family. Go Seahaws & Go Canucks!