Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics Co-Chairs Len Elmore and Pam Bernard announced the addition of three new members. Charles Olson joined in January and new members, Beth Brooke and Kim Ng, begin their four-year terms this spring.
“As Division I sports undergo their most dynamic period of change in history, we look forward to having the insight, experience, and deep expertise that our new members bring to assessing the division’s new challenges,” said Co-Chair Len Elmore.
Co-Chair Pam Bernard added, “These new members can not only share critical business and policy perspectives, but also, just as importantly, share an independence from any particular institutional or conference self-interest which is an essential feature missing from current NCAA Division I and College Football Playoff governance.”
Beth Brooke
Beth Brooke has had a four-decade career at EY (Ernst & Young), where she was Global Vice Chair-Public Policy, a member of EY’s Global Board, and global sponsor of Diversity and Inclusion. A former Division I women’s basketball player at Purdue and member of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, she founded the Women Athletes Business Network, which helps elite female athletes pivot from success in sports to success in business after their competitive sporting career ends. Brooke serves on the Board of The New York Times Company, eHealth, Lehigh Valley Health Network, and SHEEX, as well as the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, the Aspen Institute, The Conference Board, and APCO’s International Advisory Council.
Brooke is currently Co-Chair of VERITY Now, a coalition dedicated to obtaining gender equity in vehicle safety. In addition, she is a member of Purdue University’s Daniels Business School Dean’s Advisory Council and Dean’s Council for the Indiana University O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. In the Clinton Administration, Brooke played roles in the healthcare and superfund reform efforts and had tax policy responsibility for insurance and managed care. Click here for full biography.
Kim Ng
Kim Ng, a former collegiate softball player, has been a professional baseball executive for over 30 years. In 2020, she became the first woman named General Manager of a major North American men’s professional sports team when she was hired to run the Miami Marlins. Under Ng’s leadership, the 2023 Marlins posted the fourth-best winning percentage in the history of the franchise and earned the Marlins’ first full-season postseason berth in 20 years.
As a baseball executive with the Marlins, Los Angeles Dodgers, and New York Yankees, Ng was an integral contributor to those clubs’ nine postseason appearances, including six League Championship series and three World Championships. During her tenure as Senior Vice President, Baseball Operations for Major League Baseball, she worked to grow the game in countries around the world and helped to advance the World Baseball Classic. Click here for full biography.
Charles Olson
Charles Olson, a trustee of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, began his term as a Commission member in January 2024. Olson, the grandson of James L. Knight, brings family legacy, business acumen, community building experience, as well as a love of college sports to his role. A businessman in his hometown of Macon, Georgia, Olson is also a football referee in the Gulf South Conference (NCAA Division II) and a supplemental official in the Southern Conference (NCAA Division I FCS).
Olson serves on the board of the Middle Georgia State University Foundation, and on its Athletics sub-committee. A former sports-radio talk show host in Middle Georgia, Olson also owned a stake in the SPHL Macon Mayhem hockey franchise. Click here for full biography.
About the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics
The Knight Commission, founded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in 1989, is an independent group that leads transformational change to prioritize college athletes’ education, health, safety, and success. The Commission has a legacy of influencing NCAA policies, including the rule that requires teams to be on track to graduate at least 50 percent of their players to be eligible for postseason competition. More recently, the Commission proposed major governance and financial reforms in its Transforming the NCAA D-I Model report and series. For more, visit knightcommission.org.
About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Knight Foundation is a national foundation with strong local roots. We invest in journalism, in the arts and in the success of cities where brothers John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers. Our goal is to foster informed and engaged communities, which we believe are essential for a healthy democracy. For more, visit kf.org.
Media contact:
JoJo Rinebold, jojo@rineboldresults.com, 317.445.2202