Meet Hollis Brown.
She’s coming up on her one-year anniversary as Manager of Partnership Marketing and Strategy at Gotham FC, the two-time NWSL champion women's soccer club based in New Jersey.
She's also a former Miss Wisconsin USA, a title she won in 2022 while simultaneously working full-time for the Milwaukee Bucks.
Add in a mentorship platform and a nonprofit she founded, and it's fair to call Brown a busy woman.
From the Stands to the Sidelines
Brown never played sports growing up. It wasn't until she got to Virginia Tech, stood in the stands and felt the electric atmosphere of game day that something clicked.
"OK, well, how do I get paid to be here? How do I get paid to have fun, work the games, do marketing?" Brown recalled thinking.
From there, the ball started rolling. She kept a close eye on Virginia Tech's athletic marketing department until she landed a senior-year internship — an opportunity that set her career in motion.
From Miss Alpha Phi Alpha to Miss Wisconsin USA
Sports wasn't her only pursuit on campus. Brown competed in what was supposed to be a one-off pageant, Miss Alpha Phi Alpha, that turned into a lifelong passion and platform for advocacy. For Brown, pageantry revealed an unspoken set of skills that took her potential beyond the stage.
Brown spent over four years with the Milwaukee Bucks.
"It taught me confidence and how to speak to people. Obviously, you have interviews in pageants ... a lot of those are transferable skills that you were doing on the business side," said Brown. "Pageantry really requires you to know who you are ... getting a really firm understanding of what is it that you like, what is it that you don't like."
That clarity is what let her walk into the sports industry knowing exactly where she wanted to land.
Brown crowned as 2022 Miss Wisconsin USA.
Now, working in women's sports with a background in pageantry, Brown realizes her two worlds actually run parallel to each other.
Both are built around lifting women up, community, and perfecting a skill set, and of course a little competition.
No Rulebook, No Problem
With almost a year under her belt at Gotham FC, Brown is already one of the more tenured members of a young partnerships team. In her eyes, that's just what working in women's sports looks like right now.
"Working in women's sports gives you the flexibility to try things differently, because how we market in women's sports is going to be completely different than how we market in men's," Brown said.
That freedom comes with a catch: there's no playbook or group of mentors waiting to hand you the answers.
"It's kind of, trust your journey, trust what you've learned ... try it out, and then build a case study from that," Brown said. "There is no rule book. There's no right way or wrong way to do anything."
Nielsen data announced in August 2026, that 122.5 million Americans identify as fans making this the biggest women’s sports has ever been.
Without a blueprint, there's one thing Brown can rely on: herself. She fits right into the target demographic of many of the brands she works with, giving her an instinct for what works and what doesn't.
"I'm able to work with fashion and clothing brands ... seeing what Sephora is doing with Unrivaled, that is so cool," Brown said. "This resonates with my personality and my interests a little bit more, which makes it a lot easier to loop in different marketing campaigns, because I am the target audience."
The Future of Women's Sports
Looking ahead, Brown wants tech brands to catch on to what beauty and fashion brands already understand. And as the NWSL sees unprecedented growth, with Gotham FC recently setting a new New York City attendance record for a women's sporting event after selling over 42,000 tickets to their "The Queens Classic" match in July, she'd like to see women’s leagues collaborate more with each other.
"I know in Portland, their WNBA team and the NWSL team both share a training facility. I love that ... how can we work together, especially knowing that there are such limited resources?" said Brown.
To Brown, that kind of crossover is how women's sports keeps its momentum. But, at the end of the day, the partnerships she's proudest of aren't measured by logo placement, they're measured by community impact.
"Almost all of our partners have a content initiative or a community initiative ... a big thing for us is just, how do we keep women and young girls continuing to play the sport, or how do we introduce soccer to them?"
Juggling Lanes Without Losing Balance
Brown walked during Rise Now’s Spring/ Summer New York Fashion Week show in September 2025.
Between Gotham FC, pageantry, and her advocacy work, Brown has learned a thing or two about building relationships without burning out, and it starts with how she networks.
"Yes, you can message them on LinkedIn, but people are busy. I am also guilty of it. Somebody will message me on LinkedIn, but there's so much going on that I forget to get back to them," said Brown.
What actually works, she says, is putting herself in rooms built for connection — whether it's a leadership club, grad school, or a platform like Arena where intentionality is baked into the structure. And once she's in the room, she plays the long game instead of expecting an instant payoff.
"You can join this group and you might not see a return until a year or two years from now," said Brown. "Don't negate that person or downplay their role ... everything kind of comes full circle."
The same goes for balancing her many lanes: don't try to run all of them at once, and focus on the long-term impacts.
"You can't do all the things all the time," she said. "Maybe one week it's Glamour and Goals, another week it's work, or maybe it's a rest week — that's important, too."
Beyond the Pitch
Outside of Gotham FC, Brown's energy is focused on two causes: women's and girls' empowerment, and sexual assault and domestic violence awareness.
Glamour and Goals, her platform for mentoring young women coming up through pageantry, is built on the same idea she leaned on in her own career: that the confidence and self-knowledge pageantry builds are just as useful in the office as they are on a stage.
She's also grown the Celeste Brown Foundation, which supports young women through scholarships, leadership programs, and access to sports and the performing arts.
Giving back to the community is a through line in Brown’s life.
And when impact reaches Brown's ears, it's a sign that the path she's carving out is paving the way for her community.
"They'll tell me how much what I'm saying resonated with them, or how my perspective has helped them," said Brown. "That reminds me, OK, this is why we do this."
This Arena interview is written by Janai Williams.
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