Catherine Newman, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, U.S. Soccer

Catherine Newman joined U.S. Soccer in July 2024 as Chief Marketing Officer and in January 2025, added Communications to her responsibilities as the Chief Marketing & Communications Officer. Newman leads the Federation’s efforts around communications, brand development, including meaningful storytelling and content, digital and social engagement, overarching insight-driven marketing, the Insiders loyalty program, and a diversified direct-to-consumer strategy.

Most recently, Catherine was the Executive Vice President, Marketing for World Wrestling Entertainment and before that was the first-ever CMO for Manchester United FC. At WWE, her global focus was growing fan engagement, managing media partners to increase viewership, accelerating revenue growth, and evolving the WWE brand. Recognized in the 2023 Forbes Entrepreneurial CMO 50, she developed a new meta psychology for fan segmentation that led to more efficient and effective fan targeting, expanding reach and revenues across the business.

At Manchester United, she had ownership of all global direct-to-consumer marketing campaigns with a focus on fan development and engagement, personalization, and ROI. There she successfully overhauled the marketing strategy and delivered record growth in app sign-ups and registrations, making the new Manchester United app the most downloaded and engaged sports club app globally. Catherine built a new cross-club performance marketing function driving record revenue growth across direct-to-consumer revenue lines.

Prior to this Catherine held C-suite roles at Times Newspapers, News Corp and the Financial Times, London. She is a Loughborough University Alumni, a Chartered Institute of Marketing postgraduate, and a Marketing Academy Fellow & mentor. She is based in Atlanta with her family where they all share a love of soccer.

Marc Horine, Chief Business Officer & Founding Partner, For Soccer

Marc Horine is Chief Business Officer and a founding partner at For Soccer, a leading North American soccer marketing, media, and experiences company dedicated to accelerating the sport’s growth. In this role, he leads commercial strategy, business development, and revenue growth across the company’s portfolio.

For Soccer works with some of the world’s biggest brands and owns and operates Alianza de Futbol, the largest Hispanic soccer program in America. Marc previously held executive roles at ESPN and COPA90, bringing decades of experience in sports media, sponsorship, and audience‑driven commercial innovation.

Derek Aframe, Executive Vice President, Octagon

Derek Aframe serves as Executive Vice President of Octagon. In the role, Aframe oversees the agency’s U.S. based account teams responsible for managing the sports and entertainment marketing portfolios of more than 40 retainer-based corporate clients. Aframe is also the North American leader of Octagon’s global football practice, advising Fortune 500 and high-profile brand clients on their football/soccer investments, most notably their FIFA World Cup partnerships.

Since joining Octagon in 2003, Aframe has helped grow the agency into one of the world’s largest and most respected sports marketing firms, and regularly works with many leading brands in financial services, technology, consumer products, apparel, beverage, insurance, home improvement, sports betting, and more, advising them on their sports marketing strategy and investments.

An industry veteran with more than two decades of experience across the marketing and sponsorship industry, he has overseen ground-breaking marketing campaigns in over 50 countries and managed hundreds of negotiations with nearly every major sports league or property, including the IOC, FIFA, F1, NFL, NBA, NHL, NWSL, MLB, MLS, PGA Tour, UEFA Champions League, European Football Championship, IRB Rugby World Cup, Copa America, as well as numerous individual teams and brand ambassadors.

Beyond Aframe’s oversight of Octagon’s North American Marketing division and global football activities, his areas of focus include B2C and B2B marketing, commercial strategy and portfolio analysis, marketing campaign and platform development, negotiations, interdisciplinary integration, and organizational and management structure.

Prior to joining Octagon, Aframe was Vice President of Operations for Kraft Sports Group and the MLS’ New England Revolution. Previously, he held the role of advisor to the Head of Production for ABC/ESPN’s broadcast of the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

Throughout his career, Aframe has been recognized with a collection of industry honors, including recently being named to Sports Business Journal’s “FIFA World Cup Power Players” list, as well as being awarded SBJ’s prestigious “Forty Under 40” accolade.

Aframe earned an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a dual degree in American History and English Literature from Brown University, where he was also an assistant coach for the men’s soccer program and served for 14 years as president of the men’s soccer alumni organization.

Garrett Shea, President, SSEC Agency

Garrett Shea is the President of Sports Sponsorships and Events Consulting (SSEC Agency), a leading firm specializing in grassroots sports sponsorship strategy and sales. SSEC works with many of the largest youth sports organizations in the country, including 20+ USYS State Soccer Associations, EDP Soccer, Surf Soccer, and Rush Soccer, collectively reaching millions of parents, players, and coaches nationwide.

Shea has developed and sold sponsorship programs to major brands including PlayStation, Circle K, CVS, BP, Wendy’s, Amazon, and JPMorgan Chase, helping connect brands with one of the most engaged and underutilized audiences in sports.

Prior to founding SSEC, Shea played a key role in building and scaling premier sports properties, including the Army All-American Bowl (NBC), the PlayStation All-American Baseball Game (Fox Sports Net), Football University (FBU), and USA Football.

To learn more about SSEC or Garrett Shea – https://www.gosponsorship.com