Concacaf hired executive search firms Korn Ferry and Major, Lindsey & Africa to oversee its search for a general secretary and chief legal/compliance officer.
Candidates for general
secretary must have a proven track record of running a successful business, managing profit and loss statements, overseeing a regional staff, organizing large-scale events and managing broadcast,
commercial, and digital media rights, in addition to a passion for soccer.
The chief legal/compliance officer must have appropriate legal credentials, extensive experience working in
legal or compliance positions within multi-national corporations, and strong management skills.
Additionally, candidates for both positions are required to have experience with and an
understanding of cross-cultural work, and impeccable reputations on issues relating to integrity and ethics.
Governance and compliance are, of course, huge issues, given Concacaf's recent
record. The last three presidents have been indicted or pleaded guilty on Federal corruption charges, while the last two secretaries general (
Chuck Blazer and
Enrique Sanz) were at the
center of the conspiracies.
Sanz was hired from Traffic to replace Blazer but it turned out, according to the allegations in the Federal complaint, he had been in effect a plant to
further Traffic's widespread scheme of kickbacks to buy up commercial soccer rights in the Americas. Blazer was the first person to plead guilty in the corruption case, while Sanz, who suffers from
leukemia and left Concacaf last year, was named an unindicted co-conspirator.
Longtime soccer executive
Ted Howard, who has worked for many years in the old NASL, NBC and at
Concacaf, is serving as acting secretary general.
Jurgen Mainke, Concacaf's director of marketing and communications since 2012, was promoted to deputy secretary general in December 2015.