A Great Day For Women In Business

I wanted to discuss this last week when the news was breaking, but I didn't quite get around to it.

It seems kinda important to me.

According to Dodgers.com, Jamie McCourt was named CEO of the Dodgers.

This is exciting news. A female CEO of a major sports team. Wow. This, of course, is a promotion for McCourt, who served as Team President for the last several years. She continues to break boundaries with each new step.

The decision is not without controversy however. Some suggest that McCourt's promotion is mainly due to her close relationship with Dodger owner Frank McCourt.

This is not the case. Jamie McCourt is a well educated woman who has spent several difficult years working towards this position.

She started her career with the Dodger organization in 2004 with the humble position of Vice Chairman before being promoted to Team President just a year and a half later.

This came after her long successful career working for other sports teams like... uh... er... well, ok, I guess she never worked for another sports team in a similar position.

Ok, but her bio says "she loved [baseball] as a child." That's a pretty good qualification, right?

Ooo, she joined the Los Angeles Sports Council in 2004. Not bad...

She's also "an avid swimmer." Well, how about that? Swimming is practically a sport!

Hey, if that's not enough experience to be made Vice Chairman of one of the biggest sports franchises in the World, then I don't know what is.

And if a year and a half as Vice Chairman experience isn't enough to allow someone to be Team President, then I don't know what is, either.

And if just four years as Team President experience isn't enough to allow someone to be CEO, well, then... I think you get the point.

So don't tell me this is nepotism at it's worst. Jamie McCourt has a "M.S. (MBA) degree in management from the MIT Sloan School of Management, with a concentration in both organizational learning and corporate finance."

That's a pretty good degree. So obviously, she was the most qualified person that Frank McCourt could find to be CEO of his baseball team.

And I applaud his forward thinking.

Oh, and in other, related news, the Dodgers promoted Dennis Mannion to President/Chief Operating Officer.

I'm not so sure about this one. He's only spent "27 years with the Philadelphia Phillies, Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche and Baltimore Ravens." I guess my biggest issue with him is that he's only been with the Dodgers since 2007.

...and his last name isn't McCourt.

That's ok, it's not like he'll ever be made the CEO, he's only the COO. He and people with similar qualifications (or lack of them for that matter) aren't really CEO material anyway.

That's a job that can really only be done by one person.

The one person that's all the right qualifications.

Jamie McCourt.