Engagement Insider

Natara Holloway really didn’t have a choice in being a football fan or taking a job with the National Football League.

“I’m from Texas, does that answer your question,’’ Holloway says with a laugh when asked if she always liked football.   

After graduating from the University of Houston magna cum laude and using her accounting degree to become a CPA, Holloway was working for Exxon-Mobile when the NFL office in New York called.

“I didn’t go to work for the NFL because it was the NFL,’’ she says. “I saw it as a business opportunity for me. Exxon-Mobile was an established entity. This was a chance to get in on the ground floor of a grass root operation, doing it from the start. So it wasn’t just because it was the NFL.

“Then I told my dad I had a job offer from the NFL, and he said ‘you’re going.’ But I tell you it wasn’t a life-long dream of mine to move to New York.’’

That was nine years ago.

Now Holloway is the Vice President of Retail Development in the Consumers Products department of the NFL.

In her role, she is responsible for establishing the NFL’s retail growth strategy that focuses on elevating the NFL brand at retail and calendar events, enhancing the consumer’s retail experiences and building sustainable retail partnerships.

She began working with different retailers as one of several business initiatives in her previous role as the vice president of Corporate Development and New Business Development. There, she worked to redefine the NFL’s event retail operations as a new growth business. In this project, the league saw record increases in event retail revenue.

Holloway also launched an event retail-rebranding plan and expanded the presence of NFL and its partner assets within retail executions. She also had a lead role in the development of the first ever retail pop up store for women in New Orleans and won the Commissioner’s Innovation Award as part of the Consumer Product’s Women’s Initiative.          

“That was my first event,’’ she said of the 2010 NFL Shop for women. “It was a month-long project. We wanted something different.  It was for women’s apparel, so we wanted it to look more like a boutique. Of course they said it wouldn’t work, but when it opened there were lines out the door and down the street.’’

Holloway has had other “pop-up’’ events both in New Orleans for this past Super Bowl and in New York to announce the NFL’s partnership with Nike and in front of Radio City Music Hall for this past April’s NFL Draft.

“The one for the draft went really well,’’ Holloway said. “We had draft merchandise and since next year’s Super Bowl is going to be in New York, we had Super Bowl merchandise. Usually that doesn’t come out until September, but we were able to get it out in time for the draft.’’

Holloway’s job doesn’t end with the major events; she works with the country’s major retailors on a daily basis.

“We deal with everyone from Macy’s to Dollar General to Bed, Bath and Beyond, to your local department stores and grocery stores, anyone who sells the NFL product,’’ she says.

Holloway’s job is two fold. She sells and informs the retailors on what the fans, or in her words, consumers want. She’s also getting into the technology side of it, since what the consumers want is the NFL on their tablets, smart phones and other hand-held devices.

“They want things quickly and they want to be able to compare,’’ Holloway says.

Holloway still misses her native Texas, but her New York office keeps the eyes upon her.

“When someone walks in my office,’’ Holloway says, “They know where I’m from. There’s Texas everywhere.’’