Kitman Labs, the sports technology and analytics company setting a new industry standard for how high performance organizations use data, today announced the hiring of Kirk Iwanowski and Chris Aker for the newly created positions of Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Revenue Officer, respectively. Iwanowski joins Kitman with over 25 years of experience in entertainment, media and technology marketing and brand building, most recently at AnyClip, where he spearheaded their global rebrand and positioning as The Visual Intelligence Company™. Aker brings over 20 years of experience in sales, business development and execution and revenue generation to Kitman Labs, the last 4.5 years building the successful sales and enterprise strategy at Compass.
“Kirk and Chris’ expansive background and track record of success in scaling, brand building and sales will be critical as we grow the business enterprise value of Kitman Labs and tell our story to an expanding global audience,” said Founder and CEO Stephen Smith. “Our goal in the coming years is to continue to partner with elite sports and public sector companies to revolutionize how data and analytics are leveraged across every level of an organization to optimize performance and maximize return. There is no one better to help us map and execute that plan than these two seasoned executives.”
“What Kitman Labs has built under Stephen and his team in terms of integrated performance technology is not only disruptive but clearly becoming the new standard in driving human performance optimization,” Iwanowski said. “While we continue to amplify our story and drive penetration within the Sports vertical, we are equally focused on introducing this technology to other markets where health, wellness and performance data can be aggregated and leveraged to maximize outcomes.”
“The sports performance and data analytics business continues to expand exponentially every year as the technology and the user experience improves, and there is no better company than Kitman Labs to help blaze the trail and drive broad-based adoption of this practice,” Aker added. “I am looking forward to working with Stephen and the team to find even greater ways to grow the business well beyond what was even possible just a few years ago.”
Most recently, Chris Aker was the Chief Sales Officer at Compass, leading what was a small real estate tech firm to a successful IPO, which became the largest brokerage in the United States and a Fortune 500 Company. Prior to that successful venture, he led the global sales organization for Eventbrite across eight different countries to a successful IPO and the largest independent ticketing company in the world. He has a wealth of experience designing and building global sales and success organizations for Facebook (pre and post IPO), Google, Skype (pre-Microsoft), IBM, and Toshiba as well.
Kirk Iwanowski joined AnyClip in 2021, concurrent with the company’s expansion as a global SaaS company leveraging its proprietary AI technology to power advanced video solutions for business. He oversaw all branding, marketing, demand and lead generation, design, corporate and public relations, thought leadership, as well as the go-to-market strategy for its growing suite of solutions across multiple verticals, internationally. Prior to AnyClip, Kirk was CMO and EVP of EPIX for MGM Studios, prior to its recent acquisition by Amazon. At EPIX, under the ownership of MGM, Paramount and Lionsgate, he was widely recognized for helping the brand evolve from a singular movie channel to a full premium entertainment service while also effectively introducing the network to a mass television and streaming consumer audience on the heels of MGM’s $1B+ acquisition of the network in 2017. Prior to joining EPIX, Iwanowski served as the SVP, Marketing of Bill Pohlad’s Apparition Pictures and GK Film’s FilmDistrict. Earlier, he was EVP of Marketing at Sundance Channel for a decade, a joint venture of Robert Redford, NBC Universal and CBS. As a key member of the company’s Executive Management Team, Iwanowski helped lead the sale of the network to Cablevision/AMC Networks in 2008.
These new senior hires follow other recent business strategy moves Kitman Labs have undertaken. That includes the successful close of a $52M Series C funding round, led by Guggenheim Investments, a global asset investment and advisory firm with more than $259 billion* in assets under management and two strategic acquisitions of The Sports Office and Presagia Sports, both made in the last two years. The combined companies represent the industry’s largest network of elite and youth organizations (700+) and created the industry’s largest dataset of talent, performance, and medical data for all stages of the athlete lifecycle.