- Maria Heskin
- Director of Marketing and Partnerships / Women's Sports Foundation
Maria Heskin is a marketing leader who bridges passion and purpose serving as the Director of Marketing & Partnerships at the Women’s Sports Foundation® (WSF®), founded in 1974 by sports icon and social justice pioneer Billie Jean King to strengthen and expand sport participation and leadership opportunities for girls and women. A leader and champion of the entire women’s sports ecosystem, WSF is one of the first organizations to recognize the powerful connection between sport access, equity, and society, and has invested more than $100 million to empower girls and women to play, compete and lead – in sports and beyond – without barriers.
Heskin joined WSF in 2019 to build strategic and impactful partnerships with brands that share WSF’s mission to enable girls and women to reach their potential in sport and life, and to drive the growth of the Foundation’s corporate revenue. In this capacity, Heskin oversees the Foundation’s national partnerships with Delta Air Lines, ESPN, Gatorade, Michelob ULTRA and NBC Sports in addition to forging relationships with corporate supporters including Athleta, American Express, DraftKings, Frito-Lay, Tylenol, Unilever and the U.S. Air Force. Additionally, she leads the branding efforts across all of marketing to amplify the critical work that WSF does through advocacy, research and community programming.
Previously, Heskin spent 15 years at Coca-Cola leading experiential marketing initiatives for global brands across the beverage portfolio including Coca-Cola and managing the marketing activation of the company’s Olympic and Paralympics sponsorship across the Sochi, Rio and PyeongChang Games. Prior to Coke at glacéau, she led the strategic marketing efforts to build emerging nascent brands, vitaminwater and smartwater to become billion-dollar brands through the power of consumer marketing.