Emily McNab '03 | Team Captain

Sonoma Academy '07
Claremont McKenna College '11 - Bachelor of Arts Economics, Leadership Specialty
Operation Manager, Cartan Global

“My education has cultivated that willingness to always be learning new things, roles, and tasks.”

Emily McNab has parlayed a passion for sports into a career as operations manager for an international sports travel company in a manner that reflects the same willingness to step up that was evident during her years as an SCDS middle school student. After shadowing as a fifth grader at our first campus, she arrived as a sixth grader in our first year on this campus. While the location change might have been unsettling for some, Emily handled it with aplomb, remembering, “Everything was great! I had a really good group of friends, I enjoyed the teachers, the sports, weekly assemblies, and the class trips.

“Starting with my SCDS experience, my education has cultivated that willingness to always be learning new things, roles, and tasks. This has helped me move into the position I have now because I am regularly trying to understand and help contribute to, or improve, various aspects of our programs.”

We also get some credit for introducing Emily to the two sports she played in high school: lacrosse and basketball! While we have long offered a girls competitive basketball program, women’s lacrosse was relatively unknown in Sonoma County at the time. Emily learned to play in a girls lacrosse clinic taught by former PE teacher Kathleen Donnelly. “There were not enough girls to field a team,” Emily remembers,” but I learned all the necessary stick skills and the rules of the game and was able to play at Sonoma Academy.”

Emily chose Claremont McKenna College with the idea that the liberal arts college would facilitate her wish to explore career possibilities before settling on a major. Eventually she decided upon economics and it didn’t take long for our alumna athlete, and SF Giants fan, to assess the economics of sports from the perspective of there must be a way to succeed in “this sports business!”

Emily then sought educational and internship opportunities offering job experience. Those experiences proved that she could and would do what needed to be done! She also learned the business of putting on sports events as a student in a Claremont McKenna leadership program taught by the college’s tennis coach. The “final” for that class was hosting the Division 3 tennis championships, of which Emily says, “I worked so hard...but I had so much fun!”

After graduation, Emily interned with the Kansas City Royals farm team in Idaho Fall, ID, where she juggled all aspects of the sports business—ticketing and reconciling sales with the business office, marketing, broadcasting, and facilitating volunteer and corporate events. The team owner, knowing she was from California, hooked her up with Manhattan Beach-based Cartan Global.

In the two-and-a-half years she has been with Cartan, Emily has embraced and successfully managed numerous operational challenges as she facilitates international travel and accommodations for the sports fans and event hosts who are her company’s customers. She’s also travelled—London for the 2012 Summer Olympics, Russia for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and Brazil this summer for the FIFA Soccer World Cup in addition to numerous U.S. assignments.

As an athlete, Emily appreciates the camaraderie of a behind-the-scenes team. “What drew me to sports as a middle school and high school player was being involved in something that people can really connect to,” she added. As event support, we put together memorable, enjoyable experiences for our clients and we hire people from around the world to do that. It’s fun to see how event team members who might not have even known one another beforehand, come together to support our guests and the events.”

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Emily McNab '03 | Team Captain

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