Founder Sport Group, the manufacturer of youth uniforms and collegiate fanwear, has hired Samantha Stevens as senior director–licensing and business development. Stevens will be responsible for licensing, new and existing, and retail partnerships in this newly created role and for growing the company’s Licensed Sales division via Founder Sport Groups’ collegiate licensed brands ProSphere, Gameday Greats and Badger Sportswear.

Stevens joins the company from GFX, a DTC collegiate commerce business, where she forged commercial paths for the tech company in the sports, media and entertainment licensing industries. Before that, Stevens was the director of licensing at Michigan State University, focused on growing revenue to support student scholarships and programming. 

She also served on the Board of Directors for the International Collegiate Licensing Association (ICLA) from 2013 to 2021, and as president from July 2019 through June 2020. Steven’s also worked in trademarks, licensing, athletics, and marketing at Miami University, Appalachian State University and Wright State University.

“We feel very fortunate to have Samantha joining our team,” says VP–ales and strategic partnerships, Patrick O’Neill. “Samantha’s people-centric approach, coupled with her deep industry knowledge and experience, has enabled her to succeed during every step of her career, and we expect nothing less here at Founder Sport Group Founder Sport Group’s.