Jermell
Stills

I’ve spent most of my life around sports. Not always as the athlete. Sometimes as the fan. Many times behind the scenes. Mainly in the community. And eventually, as someone helping athletes and organizations figure out what their platform could mean beyond the game.

That started in Racine, Wisconsin, long before I had a title for it. Sports were my world. But after a football injury at 14 temporarily took the game away, I started paying closer attention to everything around it — The stories, the people, the culture, and the communities that made sports matter in the first place.

That curiosity never really left.

For more than a decade, I’ve worked across professional sports, nonprofits, corporate partnerships, and community engagement, raising over $5M along the way. I’ve helped build programs with United Airlines, the Milwaukee Bucks, Apple, the American Cancer Society, and the United Negro College Fund. I’ve worked with athletes, brands, nonprofits, executives, young people, and community leaders, building partnerships and turning ideas into programs people could actually experience.

But somewhere along the way, I realized I was less interested in the spotlight than I was in what existed behind it.