Spectra by Comcast Spectacor announced Kim Damron has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer of the Ticketing & Fan Engagement division. Damron will reach 10 years with the company next month, having most recently held the position of senior vice president of Operations.
Along with adapting to a set of new responsibilities comes getting used to the new title.
“I didn’t change it for a while on my signature, and people kept telling me to change it,” said Damron. “It’s weird to see it. You feel kind of funny about it, so I put ‘COO’ and a couple of people told me it looks weird and I need to actually spell it out, so I did. But now I feel like it screams at you. But it’s nice because it’s shown a lot of women in this division and other divisions that they can get to that level. People have reached out and told me it’s helped them and inspired them to get to the next level.”
Spectra Ticketing & Fan Engagement powers over 500 different live entertainment organizations, selling over 120 million tickets annually. It was also recently listed as #24 on Fortune’s 100 Best Workplaces for Women. Over 40 percent of the workforce at the Irvine, Calif., company is made up of women. Damron said CEO Dave Butler and the rest of the team create a very positive culture that is completely focused on its clients and employees.
“Dave has been fantastic and very supportive of me and my career,” said Damron. “And obviously putting me in a C-level role validates his support of women in leadership roles. It’s a fantastic culture here. We’re focused on doing what’s right for the clients first and doing what’s right for the employees in the company.”
As a student at the University of Southern California, Damron completed an internship at Paramount Studios that turned into a full-time position upon graduating. At the end of her five years there, Damron was director of National Advertising, overseeing $500 million in national advertising a year.
“I was a 20-something and getting invited to every major event, so from a learning perspective, it was fantastic because I worked on every film,” said Damron. “Whether it was 'The Odd Couple' or 'Mission Impossible' or 'Titanic,' I worked with every kind of demographic. I learned how to sell to tweens, how to sell to kids; it was great.”
In 1999, the “internet was exploding” and Damron wanted to jump on the bandwagon and see what it was all about, so she joined a startup company called Buy.com. The company was trying to break into the entertainment stores, and Damron built that side of the business from the ground up, going from $0 to $106 million in revenue in one year.
“I was able to take my entertainment skills and my relationships and help build their business there,” said Damron. “When I finished, we were doing over $500 million in revenue.”
The company was worth $6.7 million the day their IPO went public, and Damron received a check for $2,500 the day they cashed out. That, along with the internet bubble burst, influenced her to move on and join Tickets.com where Damron was eventually recruited in 2005 by Paciolan, as the Spectra Ticketing was called then.
“Honestly, I didn’t have much interest at first,” said Damron. “I went to lunch, met Dave Butler and joined the company nine days later, and have never looked back since. I’ve never had that fast of a move. I loved Dave’s vision, I loved what he was talking about from a leadership perspective. I’ve never been anywhere 10 years, but I would love to finish my career here.”
As COO, Damron’s new responsibilities include overseeing Spectra Ticketing & Fan Engagement’s client-facing and operations teams, including the client-partner team, the marketing team, the e-commerce operations team, the customer service team, the professional services team and the tech operations team. Damron will also be focused on business development on a high level, continuing to pursue new partnerships like those recently started with StubHub, ReplyBuy and SeatGeek.
“I’m most looking forward to working with all of the client-facing teams and making us more client centered,” said Damron. “I want to get them really doing what’s right for the customer and improving on our overall customer support. I think that’s one of our strengths, but I want that to resonate in every department, not just in our client team and marketing teams, but also within our support team and tech operations team as well.”
Interviewed for this story: Kim Damron, (949) 823-4506