Ken Gelman, Chief Commercial Officer
For more than 25 years, Ken Gelman has provided leadership and direction for several premier sports and entertainment properties and emerging brands.
Currently, Ken is the Chief Commercial Officer of The Carnegie Initiative (“The CI”), named in honor of legendary hockey player and social justice pioneer Herb Carnegie, a non-profit organization created to ensure opportunity and access to hockey everywhere.
Prior to The CI, Ken was most recently the Chief Operating Officer of live-event fight sports entity KASAI Elite Grappling based in New York City. Ken also founded G-Funk Sports & Entertainment in 2006. G-Funk focused on business and content development, distribution drives, digital marketing solutions and partnership marketing for sports and entertainment brands. Client partners included NFL Media, NFL On Location, ESPN, The Big East, Bellator MMA, Rogers Sports & Media, Arena Football League, Ring of Honor, GLORY Kickboxing, NFL Network and more.
Prior to launching G-Funk, Ken held executive positions with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and the National Hockey League (NHL), leading marketing, media ventures and program development initiatives including broadcast network, affiliate, and media partner relations. Ken is well-known as one of the initial creators of NHL Center Ice and has been instrumental in launching a broad array of pioneering sports video subscription products and highly adoptive end-user offerings.
Ken is a graduate of Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and lives in Connecticut, USA.
Eric Hammerstrom, Communications Advisor
A native of Marquette, Michigan, he was a teammate of The CI’s Co-Founder Bryant McBride at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, before going on to coach high school and college hockey.
Eric Hammerstrom has been a writer, journalist, teacher and hockey coach for more than three decades. He taught Language Arts, Video Production and Broadcasting at Marquette Senior High School for 25 years before retiring from teaching to join The CI.
Eric is currently an assistant coach of UP Sled Hockey in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Sam Hill, Intern
Sam Hill is an Honours English undergraduate student in his Senior year at the University of Carleton in Ottawa, Ontario. He assists with Carleton’s social media platforms and helps create content covering the school’s various sports teams.
Sam was born and raised in Toronto and writes for a hockey blog covering the Toronto Maple Leafs. Sam grew up playing hockey in the Greater Toronto Hockey League and is devoted to pursuing a career based around hockey.