Chris Renner—President, Helios China
“The problem with sports marketing is that it is still too often seen as the toy shop in the corporate department store. With the millions of dollars that major brands now annually invest in sports properties, sponsorship has become a marketing discipline every bit as important as advertising or promotions. Our job is to make sure our clients approach it in this way.”
With a strong international background and a successful track record in marketing some of the world’s biggest sporting events, Chris Renner is one of the industry’s most experienced executives. As director of the marketing programs for sports as diverse as the Olympics, Asian Games, and the ATP Tennis Masters Series, Chris has worked and delivered on projects in Europe, Asia and the United States.
Chris began his sports marketing career in Switzerland with ISL, one of the industry’s pioneers. Amongst other properties, ISL represented the Olympic Games, the FIFA World Cup, the World Athletics (Track & Field) Championships and the World Basketball Championships. Beginning in 1991, working as a Director on The Olympic Partners (TOP) project, Chris was a key player in the development and marketing of a sponsorship program that generated over $300 million in gross sponsorship revenues for the Olympic movement.
In 1995, Chris was promoted to Senior Vice President and General Manager of ISL Asia Pacific, which he set up and oversaw in Hong Kong. He was instrumental in creating the first truly pan-Asian sports marketing program, based upon the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games. Amongst other projects, Chris organized the Reunification Cup, the keystone sporting event during the British hand-over of Hong Kong to China in 1997. He later established ISL businesses in China, Korea and Japan (the latter two being related to the organization of the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Japan/Korea).
Beginning in 2003, Chris established a Beijing-based consulting agency specializing in sports marketing in Asia. The company has had a particular focus on consulting brands considering sponsorship of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Key clients over the past few years have included Lenovo (TOP), BenQ (UEFA EURO 2004, Real Madrid), adidas (Beijing 2008) and FedEx (Chinese Badminton Association).
Chris is married with three children and resides in Beijing.
MBA: Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA, 1991
BA: University of Notre Dame, 1984