Sports/Entertainment
Game changer
How David Morehouse uses market research and employee engagement to turn the Pittsburgh Penguins into an off-ice winner
By Brian Horn
Smart Business | January 2009
Page 1 of 3
David Morehouse sounds like a man who
has the only job he would ever want. After
all, the president of the Pittsburgh
Penguins grew up in Pittsburgh, and, as a
kid, snuck into the team’s games.
“When I was sneaking into games, I never
in my wildest dreams dreamt that I would
be the president of the Penguins,” says
Morehouse, who was named to the position in April 2007.
Though Morehouse no longer needs to
slip by security guards to watch Sidney
Crosby and the defending Eastern
Conference champions, he still carries the
same passion for the team, which has an
estimated value of $195 million, according
to Forbes.
“When I first started working for the
Penguins, I felt it was an honor,” he says. “I
was very lucky. I was the luckiest guy in the
world to have the opportunity that I had.”
After working in the Clinton-Gore White
House and serving as a senior adviser to
the John Kerry for President campaign in
2004, Morehouse joined the Penguins in
December 2004 as senior consultant on
the new arena project.
Morehouse thought he would be in
Pittsburgh for the short term while helping
with the arena project, but the organization
offered him the president’s job.
“I didn’t have my eye on Pittsburgh when
I was in Washington thinking I’m going to
come back and work for the Penguins,” he
says. “Personally, for me, it was a good
opportunity for my kids to get to know
their grandmother.”
Morehouse used his strategic-planning
and vision-setting skills for the arena project and did the same thing as he guides the
organization as president.
“I develop a strategic plan,” he says. “In
that process of developing the strategic
plan, there are a lot of different factors that
go into it — key ingredients or research, or
getting to know yourselves first, getting to
know your customers, and getting to know
what your capacity is and what you can
do.”
Here’s how Morehouse used strategic
planning and employee involvement to
guide the Penguins to off-ice success.
