MEET MORE OF OUR 2025 WOMEN OF DISTINCTION
Sumathi Thiyagarajan’s job brings joy to Milwaukee. Leading a team of 14 as the senior VP of consumer revenue and strategy at the Milwaukee Bucks, she might spend her day running sales and marketing meetings and planning new revenue strategies, but ultimately she sees her work as bringing people to the city to create memories and bond over a love of the team.
“Whenever Milwaukee makes the news for the Bucks, it’s always so positive and puts our city in the best light,” Thiyagarajan says. “I love that.”
Thiyagarajan joined the Bucks in 2021 as a vice president for business strategy and analytics. She brought two decades of experience in data analytics and leadership into the position and was quickly promoted to a senior VP in 2024 before this new role was created in July.
“I find sports to be the most joyful application of my skill set,” Thiyagarajan says. “And that, to me, is really motivating. … I’ve been here about 3½ years, and it’s still so amazing to interact with all the great people we have at the company and to always keep learning.”
“My advice is to learn your craft, do it well, build relationships, and at the end of the day, take care of the people that work with you. ”
Q&A
What advice do you have for women who want to pursue a career like yours?
My advice is to learn your craft, do it well, build relationships, and at the end of the day, take care of the people that work with you.
I think being a woman in these roles helps other women see that these careers exist. First of all, when I was starting out, I didn’t even know this job existed. Now I find, a lot of young women who are very technical and want to get into this. Sports fandom has no gender, so don’t let yours stop you.
What has helped you identify your strengths in your career?
I think the big ‘aha’ moment for me was this. Instead of thinking of each strength in a vacuum, I started thinking “What is my mix of strengths?”
I may not be the smartest person in the room, the most quantitative. I may not be the best communicator. I may not be the best relationship-building. But I am the best at all three of those things put together. I’m the person in the room who can build a relationship, communicate really complex things and be quantitative. There’s always going to be somebody who’s better at each a singular strength. When I started thinking of it as my suite of strengths, that really helped.
