Jamie Zaninovich is the Vice Chair of TrailRunner Sports. He leverages nearly 30 years of global sports industry leadership experience to advise clients on matters related to operations and governance, media rights, marketing, sponsorships, strategic communications, crisis management, sustainability and social responsibility, and international business development.
Prior to TrailRunner International, Jamie served as Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer of the Pac-12 Conference, Commissioner of the West Coast Conference, and held senior athletic administration roles at Princeton and Stanford.
Jamie has negotiated and managed long-term media rights agreements with every major U.S. broadcast outlet and partnered with professional sports leagues, teams, and government agencies to organize and host large-scale sporting events, including NCAA March Madness, the Rose Bowl, College Football Playoff, college football and basketball events in Australia, as well as the first, and still only, regular season U.S. college basketball games in mainland China. He has also led multiple collegiate sports conference expansion projects and served on the NCAA Men’s Basketball Committee and as a board member of the Collegiate Commissioners Association.
Jamie is a current partner in JHZ Holdings, a small, U.S.-based investment group, which has significant ownership positions in two professional sports clubs, Ado Den Haag in the Hague (“Ado”), which plays in the premier division of Dutch soccer and Orleans Loiret Basket (“OLB”) in Orleans, France which competes in French basketball’s second division. JHZ was formed in 2024 and recently completed both investments after a two-year process during which Jamie led the search, negotiations, and closing of both deals. He serves as a board member for both Ado and OLB.
Jamie was named to Sports Business Journal’s “Forty Under 40” list and sits on multiple non-profit boards, including the Green Sports Alliance and the Positive Coaching Alliance, and regularly guest lectures at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and the Haas School of Business, at University of California, Berkeley.
A native of Eugene, Oregon, Jamie is a graduate of Stanford and the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and resides in the San Francisco Bay area with his family.
