The Bravery to Master the New - SRi Executive
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The Bravery to Master the New
Peter Moore
Chief Executive Officer, Liverpool FC
As he sits in the boardroom at Anfield stadium, the Moore felt a similar sense of gratification in June
Liverpool CEO Peter Moore reflects on how close 2019, when he accompanied the Liverpool players TRAILBLAZER
he came to turning down his “dream job” and and manager Jurgen Klopp on an open-top bus EXPERIENCE
missing out on his destiny of running the club he parade through the city’s crowded streets, “looking at
has supported for 60 years. the joy of people’s faces in an area [where] I grew up”. LATEST TRANSITION
“My first reaction was ‘no’,” he says of his That moment capped a relationship with the Gaming Sport
initial response to the call to leave his life as an club that stretches back to when, as a six-year-old,
outstandingly successful California-based technology he watched the team from the ‘Boy’s Pen’ enclosure OTHER SECTORS
executive and test himself in the football industry. at Anfield, while dreaming of joining the swaying Sporting Goods
“I thought the transition would be too difficult. I was masses on the famous Kop terrace. “Football was Education
loving what I was doing.” all we had. We lived and died for three o’clock
on a Saturday afternoon because we were going BASED
“Something continued to scratch through such a difficult period in this city’s history. UK
The salvation where we could all come together and
at me, that I could give it one more laugh and smile was football.” PREVIOUSLY
crank of the reinvention wheel in Yet, for all this perfect symmetry, Moore’s career USA
path has been “a very fragmented journey” that has
my career” spanned continents and involved multiple changes
Peter Moore is an ultimate Convergence Trailblazer who grew up in Liverpool and was set in direction.
for a career as a PE teacher before he opted to embark on a new life in America. There, he Moore was Chief Operating Officer of EA, the video It began modestly when he graduated in physical
gaming empire that created the FIFA series, and had education and began work at a school in North
worked his way up through the sporting goods industry to become head of global sports
built his name working for the tech giants Microsoft Wales. “I always wanted to be a PE teacher and
marketing for Reebok. He switched to the video gaming sector and learned how to shape and Sega. He had lived in America since 1980. that was going to be my life.” But summer visits to
the future of entertainment, working for Sega, Microsoft’s Xbox and Electronic Arts (EA). In But then he felt a familiar itch. “Something continued the United States broadened Moore’s horizons and
2017, after 38 years in the USA, he came home to become CEO of Liverpool Football to scratch at me, that I could give it one more crank he decided to quit his job and have an American
of the reinvention wheel in my career.” adventure. “I moved to Long Beach, California, as an
Club, the team he had followed since boyhood. In 2019,
Not for the first time in his life, Moore packed immigrant and…really struggled for the first year.”
Liverpool won the UEFA Champions League everything up and switched sectors. His luck changed when he was offered a
for the sixth time. The deciding factor in the 2017 transition commission-only deal with Patrick, the sporting
was Moore’s sense of connection with his late goods company. “Commission-only means if you
father, who gave him his first taste of Anfield as a don’t sell shoes, you’re not eating, you’re not
small boy in 1959, and who has the club’s motto, putting gas in your car, you’re not paying the
‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, written on his tombstone: rent on your apartment,” Moore points out.
“How proud he would have been looking down on He would drive from town to town, selling
me to see his son as the Chief Executive Officer of to sports shops. After 11 years with the
Liverpool Football Club.” company he had risen to President of
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Reebok advances into sport A new era of entertainment You versus millions of people A dream come true
Patrick USA and was head-hunted by Reebok to home video game console and launching - on When he arrived back in Liverpool he turned first
boost its ambitious global growth. 9/9/1999 - the first online gaming device. “I got a “All of those lessons and learnings to Anfield’s HR team to gain a better understanding
He moved across America to Boston, feel for the fact that this was going to be the superior not only of the workings of the industry of football
Massachusetts, and led Reebok’s advance into entertainment medium of the future; interactive
were brought over here to Liverpool but also to “reaquaint myself with being British”
major sports, even clinching a shirt deal with his entertainment,” he says. “And I coined the phrase, Football Club and we hopefully lead after being away for so long.
beloved Liverpool. “One of the proudest moments ‘We’re taking gamers where gaming is going’ and He has no regrets over making the move. “If you’d
in my life was holding that Reebok shirt that we gaming was clearly, even then, going online.”
the way in reaching out” have told me that this lad who grew up a mile and
had developed and created for that team.” While In 2003, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer took Moore a half down the road, 60-plus years ago, would end
Moore was promoted to Reebok’s SVP global sports to lunch and persuaded him to become a corporate that would otherwise be inaccessible for people up sat here in this boardroom and sit in the number
marketing, he soon realised that efforts to take on vice president linked to the Xbox team. The role around the globe,” he says. “We pointed with pride one seat in the director’s box…I would’ve thought you
Nike and stretch an athleisure brand “to the fields of allowed him to spend time with Microsoft luminaries, that people were learning all around the globe about were crazy.”
the NFL, [and] to soccer pitches around the world” including Bill Gates. “I learned so much at Microsoft,” football, about football clubs, about the history,
were ultimately destined to fail. But his efforts had he says. “We were moving away from you versus your about individual players.” Interview with Ashling O’Connor
once again drawn attention. mate on the couch to you versus millions of people… When he thought of his father and opted to leave Head of Media, Entertainment &
around the world. That’s what online gaming was America, the confidence that he had transferable Technology, Europe
“At 45 years of age, I thought, ‘What going to power. We looked at the Xbox 360 and created skills formed part of his decision-making: “All of aoconnor@sriexecutive.com
a singular sentence for it, a living entertainment those lessons and learnings (from EA and FIFA) were
the heck, I can learn this stuff” experience powered by human energy.” brought over here to Liverpool Football Club and
Xbox gave Microsoft the “ability to engage with we hopefully lead the way in reaching out through
“Out of the blue”, he was contacted by a recruiter a consumer they would never have dreamt of being content, through engagement, through merchandise,
looking for a head of marketing for Sega, the San able to engage with in the days when they were just all of the things that fans yearn for [and] I certainly
Francisco-based games company known for Sonic really a computer operating system and an internet did as a (Liverpool) fan in San Francisco.”
The Hedgehog. When asked about his knowledge browser company”, says Moore. He learned lessons As CEO, Moore oversees a team of 800 people
of the sector, Moore replied “not much”. But he had that he is still applying today at Anfield. “It taught me “who don’t kick a ball for Liverpool Football Club but
bought his son a Sega console and he was used to about the utilisation of building out global networks, make football work”. His job is to make it easier for
selling to that same demographic. “I was intrigued, global database management, global billing Klopp and his players to win trophies.
I started to read up a little,” he recalls. “At 45 years of systems, so that you can engage with people no He describes himself as a “three-part player”
age, I thought, ‘What the heck, I can learn this stuff, matter where they are. Fast forward to where we are who has spent 20 years in the sporting goods sector,
I can apply my learnings of marketing to teenage as a football club here at Liverpool and we’re using 20 years in interactive entertainment “and hopefully
boys (in the sporting goods sector)’.” a similar mentality of reaching out to our fanbase.” 20 years of being in football”. He is “in my mid-
He took the job and rose to become President When Moore arrived at EA in 2007 he was able sixties” but credits his career philosophy of “constant
and Chief Operating Officer of Sega of America, to put gaming and football together. “We at EA and refresh” for “keeping me on my toes and fresh and
overseeing the development of the Dreamcast the FIFA team were creating this love of the game learning and yearning for new experiences.”
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