WHY THE USTA NEEDS AN OUTSIDER CEO. By Javier Palenque

In a few weeks the governing body of tennis in the US, the USTA, will choose its next CEO. The last one quit after two short years due to many reasons one of which is the poor governance of the organization that refuses to address it. It was simply impossible for Mr. Dowse to act like a CEO when sections have more power than he thought and when the political environment is against common sense for the benefit of the sport. Mr. Dowse was chosen as a sort of outsider of the tennis industry and the organization, and he failed to do what was needed for the game, which is to transform the USTA. Now the board of directors has a choice to make between three kinds of candidates:

1.- Choose another traditional good old boy. (Somebody that they are very comfortable with that will shake little and change nothing, but take the game to its current path, irrelevance. Someone like Mr. Dowse but that will do what they say, not what the sport needs). This seems like a loser for the sport.

2.- Choose a figurehead from the inside pool, usually, the USTA picks people who are from a politically correct and with very little business acumen, these people are happy to be selected, but lack opinions, gravitas, and a vision to make the necessary changes to the old organization. All of these candidates fail to see the obvious need for a culture…