10 Things You Didn’t Know about Erika Nardini

Erika Nardini is a tenacious, accomplished digital media and technology executive that does one thing:  gets the job done. Most recently, she has been in the spotlight due to her latest and somewhat surprising career move. As of July 2016, Erika Nardini has become the first female boss of Barstool Sports.  While Jenna Marbles also worked for them, never has a woman run the show there.  Barstool Sports is an often controversial, cheeky, and sometimes questionable for work website geared towards men about sports, news, and men’s lifestyle.  As if becoming the first female boss of the company weren’t enough, the highly sought after position Erika Nardini was hired for is CEO.

Getting to the top has been a long, hard journey that Erika Nardini has taken with stride. Prior to accepting the CEO position at Barstool Sports, Erika served as both President and Chief Revenue Officer at Bkstg. Bkstg is an musician to fan platform that strives to create a direct relationship between artist and fan, eliminating the middle man. She was responsible for every aspect of this innovative company, including brand positioning, programming, revenue and partnerships.

Prior to working at Bkstg, she was the chief marketing officer at AOL. While working at AOL she was in charge of overseeing AOL’s position and value as a leading digital content and technology platform, as well as all go-to-market activity. Nardini was responsible for redesigning AOL’s entire marketing strategy. As a result of the changes she made, AOL’s brand improved consumer awareness through their redesigned advertising and marketing efforts

That’s Nardini the professional.  But what about Erika Nardini the person?  Here are 10 things you might not know about her:

1. Erika got her career start as the Media Manager for Fidelity Investments. At Fidelity, she was responsible for all broadcast, print, and interactive media planning and buying. In the late 90s she established, oversaw, and launched their first digital planning practice.   Remember that this was during a time where multi media and the internet was just starting to evolve so Erika’s been at this since the very beginning.

2. Impatience in many others is considered a flaw, but in Erika Nardini’s case, she considers it to be a virtue. She also believes her professional focus and need to succeed is due to her experience as a collegiate lacrosse goalie.

3. She has a large collection of L.L. Bean tote bags. When she has down-time (which is not very often), she can be found shopping and adding bags to her ever-growing collection.

4. In addition to running successful businesses, Erika is a full-time wife and mother. She lives in New York City with her husband, their children, and two Bernese mountain dogs.

5. She is an award winning executive.  She’s not just a one time award winner, either.  Nardini has received several different awards to acknowledge her many accomplishments. In 2004 she was granted the Echo Award for Royal Caribbean and was named one of MediaPost Magazine’s Top 20 Rising Media Stars. In 2006 she received Google’s Marketing Machine Award for March. In 2007, she was awarded the Bronze Award for Via “Love Everyday” and the Gold Award for Nokia “New Year’s Eve”. In 2008 she received the Webby Award for LeBron.MSN.com, and in 2014 the Advertising Hall of Achievement Class of 2014.

6. She attended and graduated from Colby College. It was here that she received her Bachelor’s degree in sociology.

7.  Besides receiving a bachelor’s degree, she held several lower profile jobs with smaller companies, working her way up the corporate ladder. We know she started out at Fidelity Investments, but that was over fifteen years ago. From 2001 to 2005, Erika Nardini was the Vice President and Group Account Director of Arnold Worldwide. She managed a team of seventeen from Boston and New York office that were responsible for all digital and media management for Royal Caribbean, Volkswagon, Choice Hotels, Tyson Foods, Vonage, and Goodyear. These are all well-known, reputable companies.

8. Erika was AOL’s very first chief marketing officer of advertising. In 2013,  she was promoted from VP/head of marketing to this new position where she created and developed AOL’s entire marketing solutions operation.

9. Before being offered the CEO position at Barstool Sports, Nardini was a big fan of Barstool. She has stated that she was “hugely passionate about the site for a long time.”  She finds the Barstool website, which has received as much criticism as it has praise, to be funny and engaging.

10. Erika keeps her family and personal life separate from her work and business life. In researching Erika you will find an abundant amount of information about her many accomplishments in the professional world.  You will find a massive amount of information about her new career move with Barstool Sports. You can even find some information about her early jobs. However, don’t expect to find much information about her personal life. Unlike many other high profile executives, Erika has succeeded at keeping her personal life out of the lime light and keeping a media focus on her professional work.