Who is Leeds United chief operating officer Morrie Eisenberg? Whites’ new executive profiled — YEP 28/10/23

Leeds United’s new chief operating officer Morrie Eisenberg arrives at Elland Road having held influential business positions with San Francisco 49ers, car manufacturer Tesla and various other US-based firms.

By Joe Donnohue

Eisenberg graduated from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania magna cum laude before embarking on a Masters of Business Administration at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a student, first entering the corporate world with Chicago-based firm Bain and Company.

Shortly thereafter, Eisenberg joined Digital Motorworks before moving on to Microsoft where he held the position of business development manager. At the tech giant, Leeds’ new chief operating officer ‘developed global alliances with telecom companies, device manufacturers and content providers’, according to his actively-updated LinkedIn account.

Eisenberg later led operations as chief executive at Silicon Valley-based instant messaging platform Spleak before moving into the automotive industry with vAuto - also situated in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In 2012, the new Elland Road executive joined San Francisco 49ers as vice president of business operations, working alongside the likes of Jed York and Leeds chairman Paraag Marathe, both of whom exercise significant control at Elland Road. While there, Eisenberg claims to have ‘led business operations and analytics through the development and opening of Levi’s Stadium.’

The 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium project saw the NFL franchise relocate to the 68,500-capacity arena in Santa Clara, California. Eisenberg’s expertise and experience in this field is believed to have played a role in his appointment as new Leeds COO, with a club statement reading: “Morrie will be moving to Leeds full-time with his family to assume leadership of the club’s commercial revenue and business operations, including oversight of the supporter experience and our commercial partnerships.

“He will also lead longer term strategic initiatives, including the initial stages of our stadium redevelopment plans.” Whilst on the 49ers’ payroll, Eisenberg says he ‘designed and managed construction and technology initiatives—achieving LEED Gold status. Doubled merchandise sales across online, stadium and store channels’, in addition to creating the business intelligence team which helped ‘increase supporter engagement’ and ‘elevate the fan experience’.

Eisenberg subsequently left his post with the 49ers in 2015, spending just shy of two years with social commerce company Teespring and was subsequently hired by technology magnate Elon Musk’s flagship firm Tesla.

For the world-leading electric vehicle company, Eisenberg led ‘Tesla’s used car, trade-in and lease end division, managing a 200-person team’, whilst generating income of over $1 billion, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Eisenberg has gone on to work with business social media platform LinkedIn and in August 2023 returned to the 49ers as an operational advisor, before taking on his new role as chief operating officer at Elland Road.

Angus Kinnear, Leeds United chief executive, said of Eisenberg’s arrival: “We are excited to welcome Morrie to the team.

“His leadership, experience and energy will be central to shaping and delivering our plans to fulfil the huge potential of our great club both on and off the pitch.”