The Blueprint: The New York Jets’ Chris Gargano & Seattle Sounders FC’s Maya Mendoza-Exstrom recorded live at Leaders

Strategic insight from the New York Jets and the Seattle Sounders. 

Welcome to The Blueprint, the podcast brought to you by Leaders and Deltatre for straightforward strategic thinking in sport. 

Over the course of the series, we're hearing from the industry’s leading strategists about how they strategise – How do they build in flexibility? Inject creativity? Bring projects and partnerships to life? They’ll provide fresh perspective on sport’s most recognisable organisations, with real life examples of where strategy worked (or didn’t), to reveal how to execute strategy successfully and avoid pitfalls. 

In this episode, recorded at the Leaders Sport Business Summit in September, we’re joined by two innovative leaders from the US: Chris Gargano, Founder of Gargano Leadership Group and consulting Executive Producer at the New York Jets and Maya Mendoza-Exstrom, COO at the Seattle Sounders FC and Chair of the Seattle 2026 World Cup Committee. Together with Leaders’ Head of Content David Cushnan and Deltatre’s Commercial Strategy Lead Max Barnett, the pair explored not only the traditional components of strategy (i.e measurement, benchmarking and constant iteration) but also how they encourage flexibility and exercise creativity as leaders in the modern age.