Kiera Connerty, director of talent management at Major League Baseball (MLB), is utilizing what she learned as a former U.S. Military captain to launch and revamp performance, talent and engagement initiatives at the league office. Early on in her career, she realized how the power of networking could help her transition seamlessly from military to the sports industry.
Kiera Connerty, Director of Talent Management at Major League Baseball
“I was contacted about the position from a former colleague of mine who thought I could be a good fit for the role,” she shares. “She really helped me in explaining the opportunity, sharing her own experience at MLB, and ultimately offering me the position. It is a newly established function at MLB. It will focus on the experience of league employees and help them navigate their careers.”
Before working in sports, Connerty flew Black Hawk helicopters in the military. During her sophomore year at West Point, she flew for the first time in a helicopter. That’s when she decided that she wanted to work in the aviation sector of the military. After she graduated, she was accepted to flight school at Fort Rucker. “The Black Hawk has sort of the most diverse mission,” she smiles. “You can be doing anything from medevac, you can be moving soldiers or VIPs; I did a lot of VIP flying. You can be doing air assaults where you're putting people into crazy situations or you can be sling loading things where you're dropping equipment. There's just so many different things you can do in a Blackhawk. That’s what I wanted to fly and got to do for the better part of eight years.” Connerty served two deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kiera Connerty on a flight mission in northern Afghanistan
After her substantial operational time in her deployments, she wound up getting a job as one of the pilots for a general officer who was a corps commander in Washington state. “I just asked him,” Connerty laughs, “if I could have a job. It was time for me to move to a new place. He actually gave me a job as his speechwriter, which I had no credentials for. I had no experience, but you know, sometimes you just have to take a chance.” This opportunity gave her a chance to develop a new skill and led to her to discover a new career path.
“We did a lot of community service and projects like that, which gave me exposure to the Seattle Seahawks, the Seattle Mariners and other organizations out there in that area. It opened my eyes to everything that goes into sports,” she states. During her two years out in Washington, she had to decide if she was going to renew her military contract or pursue a different career. “I was ready for a new challenge,” Connerty explains. “The military had given me so much, and I learned so much about myself. You also just want to have a little bit more freedom and control over your own life.”
Although it wasn’t an easy decision for Connerty, and even today there are still moments where she misses flying, she knew her next phase would once again test her endurance. “I made the right decision for myself,” she states. “When I started interviewing for jobs, I found that I was getting a good amount of interviews, and people were generally interested in my story. Mainly because I think it was a little different and unorthodox from what maybe other resumes looked like. But, I was having a really hard time articulating what I brought to the table, and how to translate what I've done in the military into what I could offer an organization. That's when I made the decision to go to grad school; to get a little bit of credibility.”
Kiera Connerty meeting senior Iraqi officials during one of her deployments.
Within a month of starting the sports management master’s program at Columbia University, she was offered a position at the National Basketball Association handling event staffing and logistics. “Coming out of West Point,” Connerty comments, “you're pretty much taught to be a leader and how to lead and manage a team through unthinkable and chaotic scenarios. It's all about thinking on your toes, and having just sort of that muscle memory of how you'll react in a difficult situation. And, anyone who's ever put on a large scale event, knows it's pretty much like planning for what could go wrong. So, I found that being calm under pressure and having the ability to be flexible and sort of problem-solving helped me out in navigating a different world.” She worked her way up to talent program manager before transitioning over to the MLB.
As Connerty transitioned from the military to sports, she focused on these following steps to help her pivot:
- Research as much as you can. The more you prepare, the easier it’ll be to decide to finally transition.
- Connect with people who are in the field you want to transition to. They will be able to guide you through the process and share tricks of the trade.
- Take a deep breath and go for it. Don’t overthink it. By taking the chance, you might surprise yourself with how great of an opportunity something is.
“One thing you always get with a soldier,” Connerty concludes, “is just a sort of a work ethic and discipline. And, ultimately, that has allowed me to keep growing and being successful.”
