NEW YORK, Oct. 22, 2025 – Golden State Valkyries president Jess Smith has been named the inaugural recipient of the WNBA Business Executive Leadership Award presented by Deloitte, the WNBA announced today.

The new award recognizes a WNBA team president, nominated by their organization, who has demonstrated exceptional leadership in driving meaningful business transformation.

Teams submitted their business case for how the leader, and their team, excelled across four key business transformation categories including people and culture, revenue generation, stakeholder engagement, and innovation. All submissions were reviewed and voted upon by a committee of league leadership, led by Chief Growth Officer Colie Edison.

In Golden State’s inaugural season, Smith assembled a full-time front office staff of more than 60 employees dedicated to elevating women’s sports while fostering growth and retention opportunities across the organization. On March 26, 2025, the Valkyries eclipsed the 10,000-season ticket mark for season ticket holders of the team’s inaugural 2025 season, becoming the first WNBA team on record to hit this milestone. The Valkyries closed their first season by setting all-time WNBA records for both average attendance (18,064) and total attendance (397,408), selling out all 22 of their home regular-season games at the Chase Center in San Francisco. Smith also helped establish a robust roster of founding partners, including CarMax, JP Morgan Chase, Kaiser Permanente, OLLY, PG&E, Sephora, United Airlines, Rakuten and Waymo. Additionally, the Valkyries sold merchandise in all 50 states and 70 countries.

Under Smith’s leadership, the Valkyries launched impactful community engagement initiatives. including an innovative partnership with Kaiser Permanente that generated a $25 [matching] donation to the Golden State Community Foundation for every jersey purchased. This program will donate the funds to Bay Area youth and has transformed merchandise revenue into a vehicle for social impact, funding research-based initiatives and coaching workshops designed to keeping young girls active.

Smith also oversaw the team’s local broadcast partnership, which introduced creative programming and community engagement activations, that gave fans unprecedented access throughout the season. The partnership extended the Valkyries’ reach to more than four million fans across Northern California.

Capping off a historic inaugural season, the Valkyries became the first WNBA expansion franchise to earn a playoff berth and the winningest expansion team in league history with 23 wins.

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