Leonard Armato
Founder and CEO of Management Plus Enterprises (MPE), Leonard Armato has been a visionary leader in creating, positioning, and building "high growth" brands converging sports, entertainment, marketing and technology. Initially, MPE created a formula for converting celebrity into "brand" by launching and building Shaquille O'Neal's brand with a powerful coalition of marketing partners and positioning Shaq as a "tech influencer".
Armato possesses a deep understanding of the underserved sports verticals. Armato developed the "Golden Boy" brand for Oscar De La Hoya, and used his sponsorship sales coalition formula to build boxing for Golden Boy. In addition, he helped to create a marketing infrastructure for Gold Boy Promotions, one of the world's largest boxing promotion companies, where an MPE employee became its COO. Armato was also the original founder of the AVP and established it as the first ever "lifestyle" sport. He again applied his deep understanding of sales and marketing to create the FIVB World Championships of Beach Volleyball and the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour.
Beyond his work in the volleyball industry, Leonard has had significant success in the sports and entertainment space, representing, among others, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, Oscar De La Hoya, Kerri Walsh-Jennings and even "Baywatch" star Pamela Anderson.
In 2000, Armato launched Digital Media Campus (DMC), a self-contained ecosystem with all the resources necessary to launch and grow a sports and entertainment digital media company. Quincy Jones, Pamela Anderson, Shaq and other entrepreneurs launched businesses through DMC. Investors in DMC included internet titans such as Larry Ellison, Mark Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and Ron Conway, among others. In addition, Armato created the NBA Technology Summit with now NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. The Tech Summit continues to be a must attend event at NBA All Star Weekend.
In 2001, Leonard purchased AVP from a private equity firm and in 2002 launched the first full season. From 2002 until 2007 AVP grew from 5 events to 18, and from $500,000 in annual revenue a year to $26,000,000; it also grew from zero TV exposure to over 15 hours of network TV on NBC and over 80 hours of TV of Fox Sports cable. In 2008, the AVP received an acquisition offer from Shamrock Capital for about $40M.
From 2009 to 2012, Armato served as CMO of Skechers where he oversaw the company's creative agencies and orchestrated two Super Bowl campaigns. He also served as President of Skechers Fitness and was instrumental in launching the company's performance division.
In 2013, Armato jumped back into the volleyball space creating World Series of Beach Volleyball (WSOBV), the biggest sports/music/beach lifestyle event of its kind. Due to the success of the Event, WSOBV has recently partnered with ESPN to grow the volleyball vertical and go direct to consumer by creating and aggregating premium content informed by data driven insights.
Armato received the Heal the Bay "Walk the Talk" Award in 2006 and the USD Law School "Distinguished Alumni" Award in 2007 and in 2010 gave the USD Law School commencement speech.
Founder and CEO of Management Plus Enterprises (MPE), Leonard Armato has been a visionary leader in creating, positioning, and building "high growth" brands converging sports, entertainment, marketing and technology. Initially, MPE created a formula for converting celebrity into "brand" by launching and building Shaquille O'Neal's brand with a powerful coalition of marketing partners and positioning Shaq as a "tech influencer".
Armato possesses a deep understanding of the underserved sports verticals. Armato developed the "Golden Boy" brand for Oscar De La Hoya, and used his sponsorship sales coalition formula to build boxing for Golden Boy. In addition, he helped to create a marketing infrastructure for Gold Boy Promotions, one of the world's largest boxing promotion companies, where an MPE employee became its COO. Armato was also the original founder of the AVP and established it as the first ever "lifestyle" sport. He again applied his deep understanding of sales and marketing to create the FIVB World Championships of Beach Volleyball and the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour.
Beyond his work in the volleyball industry, Leonard has had significant success in the sports and entertainment space, representing, among others, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, Oscar De La Hoya, Kerri Walsh-Jennings and even "Baywatch" star Pamela Anderson.
In 2000, Armato launched Digital Media Campus (DMC), a self-contained ecosystem with all the resources necessary to launch and grow a sports and entertainment digital media company. Quincy Jones, Pamela Anderson, Shaq and other entrepreneurs launched businesses through DMC. Investors in DMC included internet titans such as Larry Ellison, Mark Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and Ron Conway, among others. In addition, Armato created the NBA Technology Summit with now NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. The Tech Summit continues to be a must attend event at NBA All Star Weekend.
In 2001, Leonard purchased AVP from a private equity firm and in 2002 launched the first full season. From 2002 until 2007 AVP grew from 5 events to 18, and from $500,000 in annual revenue a year to $26,000,000; it also grew from zero TV exposure to over 15 hours of network TV on NBC and over 80 hours of TV of Fox Sports cable. In 2008, the AVP received an acquisition offer from Shamrock Capital for about $40M.
From 2009 to 2012, Armato served as CMO of Skechers where he oversaw the company's creative agencies and orchestrated two Super Bowl campaigns. He also served as President of Skechers Fitness and was instrumental in launching the company's performance division.
In 2013, Armato jumped back into the volleyball space creating World Series of Beach Volleyball (WSOBV), the biggest sports/music/beach lifestyle event of its kind. Due to the success of the Event, WSOBV has recently partnered with ESPN to grow the volleyball vertical and go direct to consumer by creating and aggregating premium content informed by data driven insights.
Armato received the Heal the Bay "Walk the Talk" Award in 2006 and the USD Law School "Distinguished Alumni" Award in 2007 and in 2010 gave the USD Law School commencement speech.
