by Peter High, published on Forbes
10-6-15
The United States Tennis Association (USTA) is the governing body for United States tennis. It includes over 700,000 members. It also runs the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, Queens, New York, best known as the site of the US Open, which recently concluded.
For over 13 years, Larry Bonfante has run technology for the United States Tennis Association as its Chief Information Officer. When Bonfante joined, IT was not critical to the work of the USTA, and its flagship event was not necessarily viewed as being powered by IT. Today, all of that has changed. Players (both professional and amateur), employees, and fans all view information as critical ingredient in their experience with the USTA. As Bonfante notes herein, there is a lot that goes into planning the technology for the most highly attended annual sporting event in the world
Peter High: Congratulations on a tremendous US Open, Larry. Can you provide an overview of your responsibilities at the USTA as CIO?
Larry Bonfante: I’m responsible for running all technology for the US Open which is the most highly attended annual sporting event in the world. I’m also accountable for supplying solutions and technology support for our 17 section offices and our 4 national offices. We also provide online services that allow our more than 700K players and members register for and participate in our tennis programs. In addition to my role as CIO, I lead our corporate culture change initiative and run our Learning & Leadership Development function.
High: You have been at the USTA for more than 13 and a half years. Can you reflect on how the role of technology has changed across that time?
Bonfante: When I first got here IT had no role in supporting the US Open. Now every aspect of the event from ticket scanning, to concessions point of sales, to tournament scheduling to the water fountains outside Arthur Ashe stadium are run by technology. Today consumers have more computing power available on their iPhones than we had on our corporate systems when I started 30 years ago. That allows us the opportunity to leverage technology to create a deeper more personal level of engagement with our players, members and fans.
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