MAM
Karan Colaco joins Excel Sports Management as director, APAC, International Properties
The sports business executive, who spent over a decade on commercial partnerships and sponsorships at the International Cricket Council and began his career at IMG, takes up his new role in Dubai
DUBAI: Few careers read like a fixture list of global sport. Karan Colaco’s does. He has joined Excel Sports Management as director, APAC, International Properties, after more than a decade at the International Cricket Council, where he handled commercial partnerships and sponsorships across some of the biggest tournaments in the game. His base is Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
“I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Director – APAC, International Properties at Excel Sports Management,” he says in announcing the move.
The logic of the appointment is plain. Colaco has built his career on sponsorship sales and business development, conceptualising integrated marketing activations across in-venue, broadcast and digital platforms, and creating operational frameworks to execute them along with all other contractual obligations. His other specialities are relationship management, contract negotiations, and post-event analysis and recommendations. For a role covering international properties across a region as varied as Asia-Pacific, that is a handy toolkit.
Start with the International Cricket Council, where he has worked in commercial partnerships and sponsorships in Dubai since January 2016, a stint of 10 years and 10 months. The tournament list is formidable. It covers the ICC Men’s U19 Cricket World Cup in Bangladesh in 2016, New Zealand in 2018, South Africa in 2020 and the West Indies in 2022, and the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in India in 2016, the UAE in 2021 and Australia in 2022. It also includes the ICC Champions Trophy in the UK in 2017 and the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup in the UK in 2017 and New Zealand in 2022.
The roll call goes on. He worked on the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in the West Indies in 2018 and Australia in 2020, the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup in the UK in 2019 and the ICC World Test Championship Final in the UK in 2021. Few executives can claim a CV that tracks the global cricket calendar so closely, across men’s, women’s, junior and Test formats.
His grounding came at IMG, where he spent a total of two years and nine months in Mumbai across several roles. He was manager, sponsorship sales, from October 2013 to December 2015, a stint of two years and three months in the Mumbai area. Before that, he rose through the ranks in sponsorship sales: executive from August 2009 to January 2010, consultant from February 2010 to March 2011, and senior consultant from April 2011 to April 2012.
The IMG portfolio was wide and varied. In fashion, he worked on Lakme Fashion Week for 10 seasons, from Spring Summer 2010 to Summer Resort 2015. In tennis, he worked on the Aircel Chennai Open, an ATP 250 event, across five editions: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015. In cricket, he worked on the DLF Indian Premier League in 2010 and 2011.
In football, he worked on the Hero Indian Super League in 2014 and 2015, the I-League in 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2014-15, and the Federation Cup in 2011-12 and 2014-15. He also worked on the IMG Reliance Scholarships Program in 2010, covering basketball, football and golf. On the infrastructure side, he was involved in selling naming rights packages for the Gurgaon Metro through Rapid Metro Gurgaon.
The pattern is hard to miss: cricket, football, tennis, fashion and even a metro line, all sold with the same commercial discipline. At Excel Sports Management, Colaco now gets to take that playbook across Asia-Pacific. Expect the region’s sports properties to get a sharper commercial pitch.
