Menno Geelen

Menno Geelen (1982) – CCO AFC AJAX After starting his career as an editor and football commentator, Menno traded in his TV work for a job in sports marketing. He was responsible for large sponsorship contracts between the Dutch Football Association and NOC*NSF and Unilever. In the meantime Menno built up a formidable network and after 2.5 years he was invited to become an account manager at AFC Ajax. Within 3 months he was promoted to head of sponsoring and 2.5 years later he was responsible for all commercial communication, sales and sponsoring. Since November 2016, at the age of 34, he has been tasked with these and additional commercial activities (such as Merchandising and Fancare) at the highest level, in the role of commercial director. This makes him the first ever Ajax director to have come up through the ranks and he is the youngest Ajax director in the history of the club. During his tenure at Ajax he was named to the Leaders under 40 class of 2017 and was named Sport Personality of the Year by SponsorRingen. Menno is married and has two daughters. When not spending time in the Johan Cruijff ArenA or with his family he loves cycling.