Hoos NIL: The Facts About Name, Image, Likeness at UVA (hybrid)
Overview
How does NIL (name, image, and likeness) work at UVA? Do we approach it the same way as other schools? Does it help or hurt students academically and athletically? NIL created many new challenges that UVA and the Athletic Department are navigating. This More Than the Score is designed to address many questions alums and fans have regarding how UVA manages NIL and some unique programs and offerings provided. You will hear from three panelists with different backgrounds and perspectives on NIL: Lo Davis, Executive Director, Cav Futures; Kimberly Whitler, Frank M. Sands Sr. Associate Professor of Business Administration, Darden School of Business; Edward Scott, Deputy Athletics Director; and our moderator Gerald Starsia, Associate Professor of Higher Education at the UVA School of Education. Come and join the discussion.
Speaker Biographies
Lo Davis, Executive Director, Cav Futures
Lo Davis is the Executive Director of Cav Futures. Before this role, he served 12 years as Associate Director for the Virginia Athletics Foundation (VAF). While at VAF, Mr. Davis raised millions of dollars for Virginia Athletics, supporting several individual programs, including baseball, football, lacrosse, track and field, and women’s basketball. He also served on several committees within the Advancement Community at UVA, including creating and acting as co-chair for the annual Advancement Community Excellence Awards.
Before his return to Charlottesville, Mr. Davis worked for nine years as Vice President of Catch 84 Inc., the marketing arm for former UVA football standout and Detroit Lions All-Pro Wide Receiver Herman Moore and other professional athletes in Detroit. In this capacity, he served as business manager, handling appearances, marketing events, and contract negotiations.
Mr. Davis graduated from UVA in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric and Communications. While a student at the University, he was a baseball team member for two years and participated in JV basketball. His early professional career focused primarily in sales, marketing, and client services. He owned and operated Five Star Industrial and Business Supply in Charlottesville from 2003 to 2009.
Mr. Davis is blessed to have been married for 17 years to his beautiful wife, Sandra, and has two children, Eric and Nia. A sports enthusiast, Mr. Davis, spends his time on the sports fields with his children and is an avid golfer.
Kimberly Whitler, Frank M. Sands Sr. Associate Professor of Business Administration, Darden School of Business
Kimberly A. Whitler is the Frank M. Sands Sr. Associate Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. Previously, Whitler spent nearly 20 years in general management, strategy and marketing roles within the CPG and Retailing industries, managing global, U.S. and Eastern European-based businesses. She spent most of her career at Procter & Gamble, and subsequently served as the general manager of the Breakfast Division for Aurora Foods, the CMO of David’s Bridal, the country’s leading bridal apparel retailer, and as an officer of PetSmart, the country’s largest pet specialty retailer.
She is the author of “Positioning for Advantage: Techniques and Strategies to Grow Brand Value,” named a “best strategy book,” is the co-author of the book “Athlete Brands: How to Benefit from Your Name, Image, & Likeness,” is a Forbes senior contributor, and has published in the Journal of Marketing, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Ethics, Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Advertising Research, among others. She is on the editorial review boards of the Journal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and the International Journal of Research in Marketing.
In 2023, Whitler’s research (co-authored with Krause and Lehmann) received the Sheth Foundation Award, which honors the best paper published in the Journal of Marketing that has made long-term contributions to the field of marketing. The research was a finalist for the 2018 Journal of Marketing’s MSI/Paul H. Root Award and won the 2017 Robert D. Buzzell Best Paper for research that had the most significant impact on marketing practice and thought over the prior two-year period. Her research, entitled "Research in Marketing Strategy" (co-authored with Morgan, Feng, and Chari), won the 2020 Sheth Foundation Award, given annually to the best research published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.
Her Forbes publications have garnered nearly 4,700,000 views, has been ranked as a Top Influencer of CMOs, named a “Favorite Professor of Top MBA Students” in Poets & Quants, and has won Darden's "Morton Award" in 2018 and 2021 for the professor who most inspired the student Morton Award recipient to act upon ideas for evolution and improvement. She has worked with and/or presented to several organizations including The Coca-Cola Company, FBI, McDonald’s, CEO-CMO Summit, PGAN Large Cap CEO Forum, Forbes’ CMO Summit, E. & J. Gallo, U.S. Department of Defense, Gartner, MSI Trustee Meeting, among others.
Whitler has been interviewed, cited or quoted over 7,800 times, including the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, New York Times, Financial Chronicle, NBC, ABC, USA Today, The Associated Press, The Washington and a variety of other national and international media outlets. She attended the U.S. Air Force Academy, received a B.A. in psychology and business administration from Eureka College, an MBA from the University of Arizona, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Indiana University.
Edward Scott, Deputy Athletics Director
Edward Scott is the Deputy Athletics Director UVA Athletic Department. Scott joined the Virginia athletics department in January of 2022. He came to UVA after serving the previous five years as the vice president and director of athletics at Morgan State University, where he was named the 2021-22 Cushman & Wakefield Athletic Director of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA). His responsibilities at Virginia include overseeing sports medicine, strength and conditioning, nutrition, sport psychology, diversity, equity and inclusion, men’s basketball, baseball, track & field, and cross country, and he will help supervise football.
During his 18-plus years as an athletics administrator, Scott has served as a senior associate director of athletics at George Washington and Binghamton universities while also spending time at the University of Louisville and his alma mater, the University at Albany.
Outside of athletics administration, Scott is an adjunct faculty member in the School of Education at the University of Washington, where he teaches a course in Intercollegiate Athletic Leadership. Additionally, Scott has co-authored a book chapter titled, ‘The Black Male Student-Athlete Experience; Past, Present and Future,’ while researching values, identity formation, self-esteem, and the well-being of undergraduate college students.
Scott earned a master’s degree in educational administration and policy studies and a bachelor’s in psychology from Albany in 2006 and 2002, respectively. He earned his Ph.D. from Binghamton University’s School of Community and Public Affairs in May 2019. Scott and his wife, Tara, have a daughter named Tia.
Gerald Starsia, Associate Professor of Higher Education at the UVA School of Education (Moderator)
Gerald Starsia, MBA, PhD, has been at the University of Virginia for over two decades in roles including Sr. Associate Dean for Administration and Chief Operating Officer at the McIntire School of Commerce and the Darden Graduate School of Business, and currently as Associate Professor of Higher Education at the UVA School of Education. With academic credentials including a Master of Business Administration from the University of Connecticut and a Doctorate in Higher Education Administration from the University of Virginia, he has managed complex operating portfolios that include finance, audit & accounting, human resources, development/philanthropy, facilities and grounds, hotel and hospitality, and risk management with operating budgets of $115M, endowments in excess of $500M, and a staff of over 400.
In addition to his administrative duties, Gerry has been teaching graduate level and executive education courses in Leadership and Strategy in Higher Education and Intercollegiate Athletics, Intercollegiate Athletics Administration, and Athletics, Higher Education, and Society. He has written dozens of articles and case studies and in 2022, published a book titled “Plan to Pivot: Agile Organizational Strategy in an Age of Complexity”.
Gerry is a member of the Board of Directors at The Drake Group Education Fund, a college sports advocacy concern, and the Piedmont YMCA, is the thought leader in Agile Strategic Management at the COO Forum, an organization of executives and practitioners from for-profit and non-profit industries, and has consulted with many small to mid-size start-up and growth firms.
Prior to his tenure at UVA, he was the Founder and CEO of a medical design-build company located in the Northeastern US.
Gerry lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife Marianne and dog Bear.
_____________________________________________
More Than the Score
This program is part of the More Than the Score faculty lecture series. On the mornings of home football games, hear from some of UVA’s top minds. Lifetime Learning in the Office of Engagement partners with the Alumni Association in offering these faculty lectures. All talks are free, open to all, and held at 10 am in Alumni Hall when available.
_____________________________________________
Parking
Parking for Football Games has gone cashless! You can pay using the ParkMobile App
Parking is available in the Central Grounds Garage and the Emmet/Ivy Garage for $15 on home football game days.
Free general public parking is available in the John Paul Jones Arena (JPJ) parking lot on a first-come, first-served basis.
Complimentary parking at Alumni Hall is reserved for Alumni Association Contributing Members on a first-come, first-served basis. Contributing Members must show their membership cards (available digitally through the UVA Alumni Association Member App, which can be found on the App Store and Google Play) to access the lot.