It has been leaked to the media that Zak Brown will soon be announced in a role at McLaren. It is believed that this role will be as a Chief Marketing Officer, rather than as the CEO or chairman, as the American is best-suited to selling sponsorship, which he has been doing very successfully with his company JMI. The job has been on the cards for around six months but things were complicated by the announcement of the sale of the Formula One group to Liberty Media and an apparent offer for Brown to become the head of marketing for the whole sport. Brown is very well-connected in business and in racing. He is likely to start bringing in more money for McLaren.
The news means that Liberty Media will have to continue to search for people to fill the roles it has available. However, the firm still needs to complete the purchase of the business before hiring people and the time available will no doubt be spent learning as much as possible about F1.
Brown will almost certainly need to give up his role with motorsport.com if he joins McLaren as this would constitute a clash of interest between the media and a team that the media is reporting on.
joeblogsf1 
Interesting in that Ron Dennis had displayed the importance of a major sponsor in recent years.
Oh geeze! IPhone typo/autocorrect! That should have said. “Ron downplayed a major sponsor in recent years”
If I may, two questions:
1) What does this mean for Sami?
2) Brown is connected, and excels at finding money. But since he can bring sponsors to teams, wouldn’t he earn more continuing what he does now (ie- taking a commission) rather than being McLaren CMO? Perhaps his McLaren deal includes a commission to compensate for this.
Thanks.
We will see what happens…
who are u Fulvio Ballabio!?
And how will he value McLaren? As a premium F1 brand, or allowing any old Tom, Dick or Harry for a few £££? McLaren should be John Lewis; not Aldi or Lidl.
I think Zak knows the value of a brand. I’m interested to see whether he can ‘talk down’ RD – they do seem to get on well together. I’m guessing he got a good deal in his ex Hakkinen F1 car in the summer 🙂
You’ll find that Zak gets on with everyone!
Isnt that part of the job description for a marketing type though….
Presumably if this was on the cards for months, and before Ron Dennis was removed, then this is another appointment that he put in place?
That those who shoved RD out put in place more like.
Surely the other two major shareholders are ultimately planning to go PLC, this is how they can make a maximum return on their investment. Just having Rocket Ron as the, let’s say a 69 yr old dictator, would not have looked optimum for any financial investors. So this is all a medium/long term plan ready for a float at some time in the future?
Motorsport.com has an interview with Brown (bet that was a tough one to get) saying that he’ll be staying in his post there too. Hard to see how that won’t affect some of their reporting, though the bits taken from press releases should still be fine 😉
“Brown will almost certainly need to give up his role with motorsport.com if he joins McLaren as this would constitute a clash of interest between the media and a team that the media is reporting on.”
Tell that to Darrell Waltrip.
I agree with Fulveo Ballabeo, on the surface this sounds like a step down for Zak Brown. Is there more to come?
“before hiring people” Hope they don’t have to suffer the same bureaucratic box-ticking, yes-man, HR claptrap nonsense that a friend of mine recently went through. Common to all teams for quite a while I understand,
I wonder if Zac see time spent at an F1 team as a prerequisite for Bernie’s job in 1-2 years time?