Roger McClendon, Chief Sustainability Officer of Fortune 500 restaurant management company Yum! Brands, has agreed to become the Executive Director of the Green Sports Alliance, according to a source.
McClendon brings a track record of sustainable business leadership along with a passion for sports to the Green Sports Alliance’s top management position. The Executive Director position has been open since August when Justin Zeulner left the Alliance. A several-months long recruitment process, led by a national search firm, resulted in McClendon’s hiring.
He worked for Yum! Brands, the Louisville, KY-based parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, for 23 years, launching the Chief Sustainability Officer role in 2010. Under McClendon’s leadership as CSO, the company was named in 2017 to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and as one of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens by Corporate Responsibility Magazine.
Roger McClendon, CSO of Yum! Brands, will become Executive Director of the Green Sports Alliance (Photo credit: Yum! Brands)
McClendon was a four year starter for the University of Cincinnati basketball team (1984-85 to 1987-88). When the 6′ 4″ guard finished his Bearcats career, he did so as the school’s second leading career scorer, trailing only the legendary Oscar Robertson. McClendon was elected to the UC Athletics Hall of Fame in 1998.
Roger McClendon, member of the University of Cincinnati Athletics Hall of Fame, launches a jump shot over Virginia Tech’s Dell Curry* (Photo credit: University of Cincinnati Athletics)
According to its website, the Portland, OR-based Alliance, which opened its doors in 2011, currently has 413 member teams, leagues and venues. It looks to leverage “the cultural and market influence of sports to promote healthy, sustainable communities where people live and play.”
GSB’s Take: This is a particularly important hire for the Alliance as the Green-Sports movement is at an inflection point. It is moving from what GSB calls Green-Sports 1.0, the greening of the games themselves (i.e. LEED-certified venues, Zero-Waste Games) to Green-Sports 2.0, engaging fans, athletes and media on environmental action, especially including climate change. GreenSportsBlog will bring you updates on the McClendon-to-Green Sports Alliance story as they develop.
* Dell Curry is Steph Curry’s dad