Jennifer O’Reilly is the Founder of Protean Sports, an international strategic sports and culture consultancy which concepts and executes innovative, commercially successful, and impactful collaborations between brands, athletes and creatives.

A former professional cyclist representing Ireland and former seven-year Nike executive. With a background in international rowing, Jenn is also a board director at Leander Rowing Club, the world’s most successful Olympic sporting club. Jenn founded Protean Sport in 2022 to curate unique and authentic synergies in sport and international youth culture to drive value for brand owners, stakeholders, and athletes.

Current Protean Sport clients include international hotels and MGM Studios with a particular focus on female athletes and elevating local diversity to global excellence leveraging the narratives of athletes working in the crossover spaces between sport and culture. The athlete roster spans over 20 countries and Protean Sports leads across a wide sector of interest including hospitality, fashion, social impact, entertainment, and economic development. 

She has led on a $250m annual sports marketing strategy for Nike identifying, negotiating, and leveraging global sporting properties. She has executed partnerships with the Premier League and the FA, brought padel tennis to the Caribbean and established the Cayman Islands as an international training centre for high performance athletes and dancers.

Having a background in international German tax law she feels incredibly grateful to be working in an industry aligned with her passions and skills, and to get to work with investors, brand owners, athletes, and creatives to leverage the power of sport as a force for good.