Adam Whitfield joined Harvard as its Deputy Director of Athletics – External Operations in July 2023.
Whitfield arrived in Cambridge after a two-plus-year stint at Boston-based WHOOP, where he was its Director of Member Engagement. In his role, he was responsible for the creation and development of WHOOP's automated customer success strategy, working collaboratively with multiple departments.
Prior to his time at WHOOP, Whitfield worked at several Boston-area companies with a focus on finding ways to improve the customer experience. His first foray into the field came in Feb. 2017, when he was the Director of Customer Success at Jebbit, Inc., which had a partner list that included the NFL, several NBA teams, Major League Lacrosse and MLS clubs. From there, Whitfield joined Drift, Inc., in June 2018, as one of its first Customer Success Managers. Working with clients such as Plaid, Verizon and Tableau, Whitfield was admitted to Drift's inaugural President's Club, which welcomes those with the strongest net retention number as a percentage of their customer base.
Whitfield closed out the 2010s and rang in the 2020s with Armored Things, Inc., serving as its first Director of Customer Success. In his role, he drove the development of Armored Things' customer success strategy operations and helped support its marketing efforts, while working with a client list that included Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., Stanford University and Boston Scientific. His final stop before arriving at WHOOP was at connectRN in nearby Waltham. As its Director of Customer Success, he led and scaled its customer-facing team that serviced clinicians and facilities, and oversaw a 55 percent staff increase.
The Massachusetts native's first opportunity working for an athletics organization came in May 2012, when he joined the Boston Red Sox as its Fan Club Specialist before being elevated to Senior Manager of Fan & Youth Engagement. In nearly five years, he set the course for all the team's youth marketing initiatives with the goal of establishing a deeper connection with all Red Sox fans and cultivating the next generation of fans. Whitfield also assisted Fenway Sports Management in its effort to secure sponsorships with the family/youth segment and served as a team operations liaison when collegiate events took place at Fenway Park.
Following Boston College commencement ceremonies in the spring of 2007, Whitfield entered the workforce with Charity Partners, Inc./Tickets-for-Charity. Beginning as an intern and working his way up to Associate Manager – Sports Operations, Whitfield assisted with the national rollout of Tickets-for-Charity within the music and sports marketplace. In just under five years, he helped build partnerships with the likes of the Boston Bruins, Celtics and Red Sox, Minnesota Vikings, James Taylor and Robin Williams, to name a few.
A former student-athlete himself, Whitfield played football at Boston College in 2003 and earned his bachelor's degree in leadership & management, marketing, human resources management, while minoring in psychology. He was a 2016 Emerging Leaders Fellow at UMass Boston's Center for Collaborative Leadership within the College of Management and currently serves on the Fenway Bowl and Boston College Tech and Entrepreneurship Executive Committees.
