Ena Patel on Taking the Leap from Chief of Staff to President

Ena Patel, Team President at Innovation Baseball Partners, has built her career by stepping into complexity and turning it into momentum. In this episode, she joins Tom Guthrie, President of Chief of Staff Network, to share how she moved from tax law into the sports business, why shifting others’ perception (“not just a lawyer”) became one of her biggest early challenges, and how relationship-building across every business unit became her operating system.

Ena walks through what it takes to be effective as a Chief of Staff in environments that are either being built from scratch or shaped by deep tradition. We also explore Ena’s leap into the #1 seat as President of Innovation Baseball Partners, acquiring and building independent minor league teams with a community-first approach. Her advice to Chiefs of Staff considering a similar step is simple and direct: don’t say no to yourself.

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