Helping brands connect with fans attending over 100 Live Nation festivals worldwide, Ford, 54, and her team drove festival sponsorship for the world’s leading live-entertainment company by 13% in 2018. She’s a leader at the Live Nation division that, under global president of media and sponsorship Russell Wallach (see page 52), gives marketers the means to reach some 93 million fans (up 8% from 2017) at Live Nation concerts and festivals. Ford achieved that growth through new deals with Nissan, Subway, American Eagle, Pantene, Sterling Wine and Sony, among others, by using a powerful new tool to strike those partnerships: Live Nation’s global consumer study, “The Power of Live.” The project, which surveyed 22,500 fans in 11 countries across five continents, produced a number of key insights, among them…
