After years in marketing at Kodak, Volkswagen and Nissan, Terri Hines was starting to feel “overqualified and a little bored,” she said. Her mentor at Nissan worked in public relations and communications and Hines had always found that intriguing. So she asked him to show her the ropes.
“He allowed me to shadow him for five months,” Hines, now executive VP, communications at Fox Sports, said. “I found my aha moment. This is what I wanted to do.”
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Hines’s mentor eventually helped her land a job on his side of Nissan, and later Hines, whose undergrad degree had been in business administration, earned a master’s degree in communications from American University in her hometown of Washington, D.C. “I wanted to learn more and I knew graduate school would make me a more well-rounded communications professional and give me a leg up on
my peers,” she said.
Terri’s job is half ‘comms’ and half helping guide the company. She is strategic and always gives it to you straight.”
— Eric Shanks, Fox Sports
Today, Hines is Fox Sports’s chief spokesperson, responsible for communications, brand and social responsibility strategies. As a member of the senior management team, she leads strategic direction and corporate positioning and is a senior adviser on crisis, social-justice and diversity, empowerment and inclusion (DE&I) matters.
“Terri’s job is half ‘comms’ and half helping guide the company,” Fox Sports CEO and executive producer Eric Shanks said. “She is strategic and always gives it to you straight. She’s a real consigliere and a trusted voice as a leader.”
Growing up, Hines said her parents required her to get good grades, pick a musical instrument (she’s a classically trained pianist) and pick a sport. While she liked swimming, tennis, gymnastics and softball, she focused through high school on track as a sprinter. Hines wore Nikes, so the company became “the North Star” for her. “I dreamed about working for the Nike brand,” she said.
After a decade at Nissan, in 2007 she fulfilled her dream, jumping to Nike — and not only to Nike but to the Jordan brand, helping lead the introduction of Air Jordan 23, the biggest launch in the company’s history (and, incidentally, the subject of the current theatrical release Air, starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon).
“Working on the Jordan brand was one of the highlights of my career,” said Hines, who also worked on the Converse brand, acquired in 2003, during nearly a decade at Nike. “I had a great time there and got to find creative ways to tell the story and become a better storyteller around the brand.”
Hines also wanted to work in television or film in some way, so when Fox Sports offered an opportunity in 2016 she made the leap.
“My personal journey has not been a straight line, but I’ve enjoyed the windy road,” Hines said.
Happily Hectic
The job is hectic — in the last year, the network had the NFL, the men’s World Cup, the Super Bowl and the Daytona 500 — and Hines said “there’s no off button.”
But that’s the way she likes it. “I thrive on challenges,” she said. “The more things I have to juggle, the better I am.” In fact, since the pandemic, she has also been taking weekly vocal lessons to work on her singing.
While Hines is “maybe too good at multitasking” and falters with too much downtime, she has taught herself to delegate. “I used to worry about letting things go but now I trust my team and let go a lot,” she said, adding that as a leader she also tries to be a good listener. “I don’t always have it right and don’t profess to know it all.”
Beyond all her career success, Hines has another goal. “It’s important that I give back, leaving a legacy around inclusion opportunities and creating seats at the table for women and people of color,” she said.
At Fox she helped create the first inclusion council and became executive sponsor of its employee resource group, Fox BLK+. She also is involved in her community as a director of The LAGRANT Foundation and as a corporate adviser to the UCLA Center for Media, Entertainment and Sports.
“This is what I’m passionate about and it’s integral to who I am,” Hines said. “As a successful leader I want the people coming up behind me to get the opportunity to sit in my chair.”
