Business of Speed Podcast - The One with Lee Zohlman, Formula E Director, Americas

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

He built endurance athletes, powered triathlon empires, and helped brands like Pepsi and Samsung enter the world of speed. Now Lee Zohlman—the man behind Formula E’s Americas partnerships—joins Vincenzo Landino and Lali Michelsen to talk about:How saying no to the wrong deal doubled his career trajectoryWhy partnerships, not sponsorships, define the next era of motorsport businessFormula E’s billion-impression growth story (and what it teaches every brand)How the electric series plans to conquer the Americas—Miami, Mexico City, São Paulo and beyond

hola vincenzo hola lali how are you i'm doing well there's something i have to say before we start uh happy birthday to you happy birthday thank you yeah thanks unfortunately unfortunately i'm very aware that your your favorite ferrari is the 250 gto and i tried very hard to source one of the 36 in existence globally a 62 a 63 a 64 it turns out that no one would take my zero to $100 offer that was my budget for you this year, no one would accept it. It's shocking. So I got you nothing instead and I hope you appreciate that. You know, they make little models that are affordable. Just saying. Just saying. Just throwing that out there. Maybe next year. Well, it is a big birthday, so thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you, Lee. Thank you.

Yeah. Well, welcome back to the Business of Speed podcast. I am your, one of the co-hosts, Vincenzo Landino joining me. You already heard Lali Mikhaelsson on their side. Today we have a special guest to the show. Special guest to the show, friend of the show, Lee Zolman. He is the Partnerships Director at Formula E. He's been involved in anything that has four wheels, two wheels, anything that goes fast, really. I think that's right, Lee.

I mean, that's probably how we should, if it goes fast, you're probably involved somehow. Or you've been involved? Unless it's NASA, yeah, I've been involved. We could figure that out too, I'm sure. But listen, I mean, the day is still young. Yeah. And you're young, too. So there you go.

Well, funny enough, my birthday is in 48 hours, Vincenzo. So we share a birthday week. We're 48 hours. And you know what? Lali's birthday is. How do I? October 20th on Sunday. Well, so we're all in the same week.

I'm assuming I'm probably a little bit older than both of you, though. She's only 25, so. Happy birthday to you both. That's great. Well, happy birthday to you both, then. So now this is the birthday episode. This has become the birthday episode. Yeah.

So we're going to talk to Lee a little bit about strategic partnerships, revenue growth, motorsports. I think Lali wants to ask you some stuff about probably Miami because you guys have Miami in common. Yep. But yeah, so we'll talk a little bit about that. We'll go into, I'm going to look a little bit into the future too, things that are happening, which I think we're all excited about. Motorsports is, you know, the beautiful thing about motorsports and what's happened over the past. seven, eight years, maybe a lot of people might credit certain documentaries online or, you know, on Netflix for the boost, but I think rising tide raises all ships and we're seeing a lot of growth

across the board in motorsport. And, um, I actually just racing, I should say racing because formula E, I guess there's motors, but they're electric, but we're seeing sailing. We're seeing, you know, all sorts of different mediums of racing that are just getting more attention now. and uh we'll talk a little bit about that as well but i'll let lolly kick it off she'll ask someone she'll jump into this with you lee thanks for being here thank you for having me yeah this is great this is great so yeah let's kick it off with some miami talk okay you're a guy from miami i'm a girl from miami grew up in miami we actually know some people in common that's how lee and i connected in life a little bit so you're in miami you're in high school you're thinking okay what do

I want to do next in life? What, what sort of steps did you take in life that led you to where you are today? Just so for people listening, it's, it's not always a straight course. How does a guy from Miami, which really isn't a really big racing city. Sure. We had, we have Homestead. We had some NASCAR there. You and I will remember there was a IndyCar champ car at the time going down Biscayne Boulevard, you know, under the MacArthur back in the day. Yeah. But, but so how did you end up where you are today. What led you there? Well, in the essence of time, I'll make a shorter version of it. Yeah, definitely cool to be with you both and talk about racing and business. And I absolutely love the business of racing. It was not something I was thinking about. But

to answer your question, born and raised in Miami, fortunately, my father was a huge car guy, and I'm a huge, and he taught me things about cars. And he took me to car shows, the Miami International Auto Show that was here every year. And he took me to those car races, is the Grand Prix's in downtown Miami in the eighties. And, you know, toured me around the paddock and it was so cool. It was so accessible back then. I grew up a car guy. So when I turned 16, he spoiled me, thank goodness. And he bought me a very unique vehicle, which was my first car, which was a 1967 convertible Mustang, fully restored red with white interior. And I babied that thing. I changed the spark plugs myself, the hydraulic fluid. I worked on that. I mean,

I still have scars on my hands from it. So I grew up a big car guy, but that wasn't my track. And nor do I think that it's normal that people have that one track. My best friend at the time went on the accounting track and he's been an accountant for 30 something years. My journey has been anything but a straight line. But to answer the question, you know, I was studying broadcast journalism in high school. And I went into broadcasting in college and that was my degree. And then I worked in the field after it in broadcasting, but specifically in sports broadcasting, extreme sports broadcasting. But, you know, as it turns out, I went into sports marketing. I'm making a long story very short. And then I always loved cars and car racing and

doing sponsorship was something it seemed I was pretty good at. I was getting some pretty good results, which I can go into if you want me to with some of the examples. And then that got me into motorsports. And I can tell that story if you want, but the broadcasting worked out, but I went into a different business and that business had marketing involved in sports marketing. And that led me into the path of sponsorship, which led me into motorsports, but it's a good story. So I'll take a breath there well i think there's i think unrelated to motor sports i mean you also you're an athlete yourself which i'd love for you to talk a little bit about that you've you've done a lot of endurance sports and i think that sets up i think there's there's a reason why we do what we

do sometimes and and not sometimes there's a reason why people do what they do regardless of what industry they might be in right there's a reason why you're you're doing something it we just need a vehicle to do it in right so you just happen to be using motorsports to do the things you've done or or or you know you you have actually coached and mentored endurance athletes so i would love to hear a little about that in the background because i think it's super interesting as well that if it wasn't for that then i wouldn't have this i think as we talk about our birthdays i think you know i'm going i'm well in my 50s now and it's a good time to reflect back So I started a I was a diehard triathlete starting in the mid 90s. I loved the sport of triathlon. I was racing all the time and I left the entire broadcasting career behind to pursue a career in coaching, coaching triathletes. And I built a business at the time when there wasn't triathlon coaching as a business. And I built a triathlon coaching business, which ended up being one of the top four or five largest in the country at the time with the most amount of athletes.

And I was coaching regular amateurs and professionals. And then I was getting sponsorship for my coaching company from corporations endemic into endurance sports. And it seemed like I had a knack for getting sponsors. And the how I did that is a whole other story, but I was managing professional triathletes. So I started taking on professional triathletes like any agent would to manage them, do their sponsorship, teach them about PR and media training and that stuff. And so I had this coaching company and then I had a sports marketing company. The sports marketing company was representing athletes and also events. And I love to tell this story. I was at the time, I was representing a two-time Olympian and he told me, he called me up one day and said, hey, can you get me and my girlfriend at the time sponsorship? she was a professional triathlete as well and that really led me down that path um was was his phone call to me and i did a number of deals do you want me to go over the pivot from

sponsorship in motorsports i think you're just on me yeah no i think it's directly relatable i mean you you you have this there's a line in your linkedin that i really like and you say something like, I gotta pull it up. But it said, through my background in endurance sports, I've developed core principles of discipline, strategic planning and follow through, which is directly relatable in partnerships. Yeah, I mean, you don't do sponsorships and partnerships if you don't, if you don't have discipline. If you're not a planner, if you don't know how to strategically understand a brand and a property. So everything works together. So yeah, there's a reason why you pivoted. And I think that's where I was trying to get at was, you know, things translate across

the board um and and you you've clearly done that so yeah let's talk about the pivot yeah and you know i think in doing that reflection and working with executive coaches the last four or five years working with therapists which i'm very very open and discussing and thinking about you know how it all came to be it's like if you're going to go into the sport of triathlon and you're going to compete in triathlon even if it's the small little ones or the big ones i did i did them all. I did 220 something triathlons in my life. I did two Ironmans. I mean, when you're doing something like that, it's a certain type of person that does it. And I think that type of person also does well going after sponsorship because sponsorship is a miserable way to make

a living. I love it, but it is torturous like triathlon. It is just grueling and a grind, but when you hit, it feels really good. When you win in a triathlon, it feels really good. I know that feeling, fortunately, I'm very grateful, but it comes with so much work and the wins don't come as often. And so I had gotten some wins in sponsorship. I did some multi-year deals with some big brands, PepsiCo, Gatorade, Samsung, Metro PCS. Never heard of them. They all happened in like a one year period where I got these major deals going. And I'd always, I always had some of the filler, right? Some of the smaller stuff going on. Then I merged my

sports marketing agency with a nice size creative agency here in Coral Gables, which Lolly will know Coral Gables. And I was doing, we started a sports and entertainment division and we were doing sponsorship for different events and I was doing business development for the agency, learning how agencies operate. It was an amazing experience. And then I'm laying on the couch one day and I was watching F1 and I remember, you know, this was 2014. And I'm thinking to myself, God, I spent all this time for sponsorship for these events. You know, yeah, the numbers are nice, you know, five figures, six figures, but look at all these brands, UBS everywhere, look at all these brands in F1. And so if you'll just humor me for two minutes, I'll tell you how I ended up. The direct

pivot was I went to LinkedIn and I looked up someone on the Andretti team who was president of the Andretti team because it was the first name that came to mind in motorsports was Mario and Michael Andretti. So I looked them up and he accepted my connection request. And then through another situation, I found out that they were looking, the Andretti team was putting on the Formula E race in Miami in 2015. And it was the first FE race going to be in Miami. And they needed someone local who could sell sponsorship and was interested in that. And I knew somebody who knew somebody and they made me an offer, you know, to come and sell sponsorship. And I turned it down because I didn't like the offer. Yep. Yeah. I was like, you know, I, I, I'm already

working in an agency. Like, yes, I want to work in motorsports. And the guy says to me, he says, well, you know, I still want you to meet the president of Andretti. He'll be down here in a couple of weeks. You guys should definitely meet. So I said, okay. And I met with him. And And then that night, I guess the meeting went well. That night he called me and he made me a better offer and I took it. And so my first job, and I'm still grateful, so grateful to this day, my first job was on the Andretti Autosport team. And as you and I both know, there's a number of different classes of racing, series and

teams, and I could have been on a no-name IMSA team. No offense. IMSA is actually great racing. They're doing very, very well. But you go to market with Andretti and it's a different ballgame. It's a totally different ballgame. And actually now they're still in your life because now they're a big player in Formula E as well.

So it seems like that's been a constant in your career. They're doing really, really good things. Now, unfortunately, we're not going to have the name Andretti in Formula One next year, but those of us in the know know what that team is and what it represents and who has been behind it for so long, who's put the passion into Cadillac, right? It's been the Andrettis for so many years,

like having this dream and and Mario of course at the at the helm of that I want to just quickly touch on something you said about endurance athletes uh knowing pain very well being very familiar you made me think of there's a grand tour of cycler that you'll be familiar of in the past called Jens Voigt a legend and Jens had it legendary he he had on his legs on his thighs tattooed shut up legs so that when he was cycling he would see when he looks down he would see shut of legs. And, and you're right. The, the, the fulfillment of dreams in general comes with a lot of suffering and, and it can be physical, like an endurance athlete, but sometimes it's sleepless nights. It's eating ramen noodles. It's like, where am I going to pay my mortgage? So there

is a lot of suffering in business and making a business work in general. Yours just also happened to be physical, actual suffering. Yeah. So you said something, you said something that I think is very important to understand you said no to an opportunity you actually wanted right because you knew it was best for you and it actually came back to you i don't know if it was double triple whatever but it came back right and uh sometimes we have you know lolly and i talk about this all the time sometimes you have to say no sometimes saying no is the best is the best thing you can do i recently got an offer so so lee and i met because i reached out to him on LinkedIn which is interesting that that's how you ended up also getting in so I reached out to Lee

a year ago now actually and I was at a point in my life where I wanted to pivot but and I knew I wanted to be involved in motorsport I didn't know how found Lee on LinkedIn I messaged him I said can I have a call with you and so graceful he said yeah how about tomorrow or something like immediately yes so lovely I still remember that call very well it really put me on a path it took me a while to get my ducks in a row but it led me to this point and then at some point along the way recently i got called with a job offer like a lot of security here's this dream job and i for a second i was like oh what to do i'm pursuing a dream now in motorsport i was like you know what i'm gonna have to pass and it's tough to say no and you just mentioned it's very tough to believe

in yourself and say no i know what i want and what i deserve and i'm it's gonna be a no yeah absolutely and i think you know i know i painted a uh i hope i didn't paint a negative but i hope I did a tongue-in-cheek negative picture of what partnerships look like. And I'd rather use the word partnership than sponsorship. But the thing is, is I love the business of sport, you know, and I helped to run an IndyCar team in the past as CCO and represented teams and drivers across IndyCar and Formula One. And just the business of motorsport is what I love. Yes, I love the partnership deal-making the most, but really the whole business of it and just the whole racing, I just love. And I think that runs true. Like all the teams I've worked on and even with the FV people, I mean, it's, we travel a lot. It's long days. It is not easy. It is not as glamorous as people think, but we all love the racing, you know, for the most part, we're not just doing it for the paycheck.

We're doing it because come Saturday or Sunday, we love the racing, right? And everything that comes with that. So that's kind of where I'm at now with it. And I stopped racing in 2013 to focus on my professional career. So right now I just stay in shape, try to exercise. So I want to talk about, let's pivot into Formula E and get into that a little bit. I want to know how much was Formula E on your radar? Did you follow it?

And you entered really at a fun time, right? The Gen 3 car, it's two engines, right? The total of 600 kilowatts, I think there's, yeah, 60 kilos lighter. So the power to weight ratio is tremendous on those cars. I heard something that it was the fastest acceleration of a single seater in the history of the sport of any open wheel racing. So that's incredible. You've come on huge schedule next year, 18 races, the most you've ever had,

22 cities and your task was sort of being the director for the America's region of this sport tell us what that looks like you're you're losing McLaren you know so tell us about Citroën is entering so so talk to us a little bit of about Formula E how you what you knew of it before and what your plan is forward yes I followed Formula E because obviously just through racing staying abreast of of what they're doing and the technology aspect I love the tech aspect of it so yes I followed them and then fortunately was able to come on board with them over the summer so still relatively new but it was sort of jumping in as as we like to say right head first and it truly was and like after I after I was I started and then like 10 days later I was in Europe for three weeks

following the Berlin and London races and working in the office and it was like total immersion And it's great. So some of the numbers that are really amazing are 23% year-over-year fan growth, the fastest growing motorsport series in the world, over a billion social media impressions worldwide, and so on and so on. And so the growing nature of the sport is something that obviously attracted me very much to it. The opportunities here in the Americas as we expand with races, more races in the Americas, which we'll be announcing later on. But yeah, I mean, I oversee, you know, Miami, Mexico City and Brazil, all cities that are just fabulous, fantastic. And I know Sao Paulo very, very well, been there many times. So I felt very, very akin to that culture. Obviously, Mexico City, being raised in Miami, very familiar with the Latino culture. So I thought it was a tremendous opportunity. Super excited.

Lots of opportunity. And we're racing here where I live in Miami, Florida, January 31st. So I expect everyone listening to get a ticket and come. Not only that, you're racing. You've left the infield at Homestead. Tell people where the race is going to be next year. Correct. It's at the Miami International Autodrome at the Hard Rock.

Similar track layout to F1's track layout, but we changed it a little bit. You know, F1 is just a different fruit. We're both fruits. They're just a different fruit. And our racing is very exciting. We definitely have more overtakes than an F1 race. You know, there's definitely more of an electric feel to it. And we also cater to, from what the stats tell us, to a different audience.

It's not better or worse, just different. You're younger. 46% of our fans are 18 to 44. And we do a lot of work on our social side, on our content generation side, and just telling a different story about racing. One thing I love is sort of the variety of drivers you get. So you get also the age range of drivers, right? You have some really young guys.

And then you have some veterans like Seb Buemi. and well you're losing Sam Bird which is he's sort of part of the furniture he's been there from day one so you're losing him but I do like that a lot in in series in general you have guys tend to be of a same the same age so this is it's such a variety in so many ways Lali I'll tell you something interesting you kind of hit on something just a few weeks ago in the span of one week I spent a day with Lucas Degrassi and then I spent a day with with Dan Tickdom and completely different animals, right? You know, it's like having meals and hanging out and talking with Lucas and not that one's bad or one's good. They're both lovely guys. I had fun. I enjoyed my time with both of

them. I hadn't spent time with them previous, but completely different animals and great characters. And I encourage anyone to come to a race, you know, come to an autograph signing session or try to meet them. And it's really amazing. So some definitely some, some great drivers. And now, you know, I think we have the women's testing at the end of the month as well. I did work previously for the last couple of years with Lindsay Brewer. She's going to be testing as well as as well as a few others who I'm not so familiar with. But I think the women's testing is something we're really excited about as well. Lee, I guess we'll talk a little bit about, you spoke about the fans. So what is the strategy for Formula E in market expansion, both North and South America? What are the plans? Can you walk us through that a little bit and tell us what Formula E's got going on there? Sure. I would say, well, we just announced another race in China. So we'll have two races in China this season that kicks off December 6th for season 12. We're also racing Madrid, which we're really excited about. We've got a lot of ties to Madrid, obviously with our owners.

So they're very excited about racing in Spain. And hopefully I'll get to go over to that one as well, because Madrid's an amazing city. And I think it's going to be a great canvas for an exciting race. In the next couple of seasons, we're looking for another location in north america so we can look to that and then probably another one in south america so the americas are primary you know mover for us asia is a big one as well so we'll see what happens there europe is important but but the americas and asia are really good good for us what and what do you see and again i don't know if you know the answer or you have the answer but what do you see the reason for that driver is here is it just because they want the american or the money from

this region or is it like viewership are they more likely to be interested in electric car like what's the mechanism there i'm sure everything comes down to revenue we you know we want to go to places where we're going to generate revenue so it's going to come down to that and obviously the americas were huge six you know liberty global is is a big part of our ownership group now and they want to grow and the americas is a great place to grow and motorsports is very hot thankfully due to covid here in the u.s so um hey it's the truth right yeah yeah for sure it's reality yeah absolutely reality if there wasn't one there wouldn't be the other so well not not to the scale and then and then asia is another big one there's a lot of areas in asia that

really want more motorsports and they're willing to make that investment and the fans are just rabid the fans are just amazing like i haven't been to the tokyo race but my colleagues are Just like that Tokyo race is incredible. Hopefully I get to go. What kind of, I mean, I know that the UK has ITV, right? That's, they have a big deal with Formula E. What is, what is the, what does the package look like for Latin America, for the US, Canada, et cetera? But now you're really testing me on my media rights knowledge.

Well, I'm on partnerships, I'm on media. So, um, US. You got to sell this stuff, don't you? We want people watching. We want people watching. CBS, we're in America, we're CBS and Roku. So we're on CBS Sports and Roku. Azteca in Mexico City is our broadcaster.

And if I don't know Brazil, I believe we're Banderantes in Brazil. Opa, there you go. I believe, I believe. I have to check that one. You'll have to put in the show notes if I'm wrong on that one. I'm looking it up. Don't worry, we're going to find out. You're going to find out.

I just want to make sure people watch. We need eyeballs. We need eyeballs. and sometimes it's hard like as you know from your indycar days you were hunting around this figuring out where am i going to watch this indycar race this weekend and it was so stressful sometimes for fans do i have that channel do i not have that channel where am i where am i going to find my guys you're rightly you're right just yeah but it's known as band band band sports so but nice let's see you look you're good this is the guy this is the guy that knows

Like you said, I have to sell it, so I better know these things. Yeah, so I think to your point, making it easy for us to find and hard for us to be forgotten, right? We want to be hard to leave, and we want the racing to be exciting where it's hard for people to leave and we're easy to find. And that's sort of our mantra for Season 12, and it's something that we're serious about and pushing forward with a lot of our marketing initiatives. It's good because you have a lot of names that people recognize. like i said boemy like john eric verne like nick devry so there's there's many people recognize so that that i hope bring in viewers and then there's really exciting guys new guys like you mentioned dan tickham and there's there's other guys that are there that are really and nick

cassidy is another one that's very exciting to watch so so there is so sort of it brings in both right you have guys that are established names that may draw people and then people that you watch one race and it's very exciting once you get over the the engine right because it is it is a different sound it is a different sound for sure if you're looking for a combustion engine well this it's it's not the same sound but when you realize how punchy these cars are now that they're they're going to be smaller they're very punchy they're very these guys are very talented people need to know that these guys are the guys that were racing against max rostop in orlando or any of the Alexander Rossi was, I think, teammates with, I can't even remember, with Antonio Felix da Costa.

They were teammates at some point. You have a legend like Antonio Felix da Costa, who's won pretty much everything he's ever raced in. So it's spectacular racing. So we just need people watching it and they'll get hooked. Just watch or go to a race. If you go to a race, you'll be hooked. And it's really an experience. So it's an experience for all different types of fans.

And I know, I mean, listen, you're giving me a platform to sell it, but I'm also speaking from the heart. If you're a teenager and you want to go into the fan village and see some cool experiential stuff and get some great merch and drive some simulators and do some reaction like games, like we've got that. If you're a business executive and you want to network, in some markets we do Change Accelerated Live, which is a thought leadership and business networking conference the Friday before the race. 61 of the 300 to 400 attendees are director level or above we do an amazing thought leadership and business networking conference there again called change accelerated live so if you're someone who wants to do that you can do that if i just got off the phone right before you guys with a global company 1.67 billion market cap and does some sports partnerships and i said what do you guys like to do like what do you want to get out of your sports partnerships he says we need to

entertain our customers and our distributors. I say, great. We have our emotion club. It's our premium hospitality place. We'll give you 30 to 40 passes. You can, we'll take them on paddock tours and hot laps and we call them electric laps. So we have something, well, the cars are electric. So we have something for every type of fan, I believe, you know, and, and the best part is were really affordable. You know, you can take a family of four and it doesn't rob the bank, you know, and you can work on your company budget and do some entertaining that's not going to be into six figures for some premium hospitality. If you want, I can charge you six figures, but it won't be six figures. That's something we've talked about a lot, right, Vincenzo?

So we, our actual, was it last episode or two episodes ago, that was a premium hospitality, you know for for circuits it was specifically around the circuit business but yeah premium hospitality is the money maker you know coda at the circuit of the americas they just they're they announced they're adding uh that turn turn one hospitality suite or hospitality like not even just a suite it's an entire building building like motorsport country club with gondolas into the track and all this really cool stuff but we talked about this on our pot you know on one of our episodes where premium hospitality is is the only way for these tracks or the series to make money like that they have to make money and still allow them to provide an experience to others

someone has to you have to offset the cost somewhere and uh premium hospitality is just so important but it's it's good to hear that formula e has you know and far less versed in formula e um than than lolly and obviously yourself but you think other motorsports and you're like okay they don't have a premium offering or they may they may not have a premium offering so when you talk about how there is this offering and there is executives i'd love to know i mean why does why would i you know imagine i'm an executive who's trying to look for motorsport sponsorship or racing sponsorship in general sell me on formula e versus formula one indycar like why why am i picking formula e if i had no idea i'm a blank canvas i come to you with an

open checkbook and i say i don't know tell me why i need to come here sell me like what's the what is the differentiator model there yeah what what are they well i assume you're talking from a partnership perspective and not a premium hospitality perspective i'm talking from Yeah, sorry. I should have changed gears. Yes, partnership. My bad. I mean, our Emotion Club, I think, is wonderful. I've been to a number of them. We also have just one step lower called the Electric Lounge, another premium hospitality offering. So we have these amazing areas where we ingrain kind of wherever city we're in, these social and cultural experiential activations within the Emotion Club or Electric Lounge. so you know if we're in mexico we're gonna have your guacamole maker right or we'll have mexican dancers or artists painting something inside so we'll we'll always be very reflective of the of the cities and countries that we're in for the premium hospitality they always change kind of

the vibe um and and i i'm very excited about it because i was on we had a team whole team-wide let's call it breakout day this morning. So everyone went off site in London. The whole team went off site in London to spend six hours together with a whole agenda, which meant that my day started at 4.30 this morning because I had to log in for this thing. And then part of it was going over our next season's premium hospitality plan, which was really exciting. That aside, But to your answer, why are people going to choose? Why is a CMO or a CEO going to choose us? There's a couple different reasons.

Number one, you have to look at what are their, what I call their COG, C-O-G. What are their challenges? What are their objectives? And what are their goals? What do they want to get out of a partnership? And sometimes we can come in and answer those questions better than others. A number one is a lot of big companies have problems or ways of telling their ESG story, and they want to align with us, the most sustainable sport on the planet, to help tell their story on sustainability and partner with a truly authentic way of telling that story. So from the sustainability standpoint, there's an organization called BSI, which about two months ago ranked us against other sports properties on a scale of zero to 100.

And they ranked us an 81 as the highest, most sustainable sport on the planet. NFL ranked a 31, just to let you know. So when I put together partnerships, like looking at a beverage company right now for one of the races, I have to tell them, listen, you can come in and be a partner. We can't have any single use plastics. Everything has to be recyclable, that kind of thing. So we do tell that sustainability story. The price ranges are completely different from F1.

So we don't like to compare ourselves there. But honestly, if you're going to go sponsor an F1 team, you're going to need to have one and a half, two, two and a half times, whatever you spend on activation. And even then, if you don't really commit or have an agency to commit, you're going to get lost in the shuffle. So I think our account management team does a better job with our partners in making the activations more impactful. So that would be that. IndyCar against IndyCar, NASCAR, it's different. I mean, we're a global series. Our race in Miami had over 10 million viewers last year. IndyCar, which i love i love the racing indycar but it's pretty north america focused yeah yeah so yeah i

think it's just it's just a different animal you know and we just have to find the right companies and and that want to partner with us and a lot of companies so you take like infosys one of our global partners or google like i mentioned another one of our global partners not the most exciting businesses and we have a couple others that aren't really the most glamorous exciting businesses but through racing they can tell they can make their business an exciting story and so if you're kind of a mundane kind of business partner with a race car series or or a team whatever and and that way you can use the excitement the thrill of of car racing to help tell your story yeah yeah i mean there's so many of these i think most of these major sponsors are all non-sexy across the board

i'm just gonna say major sponsors for teams across the board um one of my clients sap used to showcase their mercedes car the mercedes formula e car at every conference every event they had it was front and center because no one really cares about your erp system but right you've got a you got a formula you got your logo on a formula one car you know everyone's snapping selfies and taking pictures and everyone's interested in it and all of a sudden it's this sexy thing everyone cared about their nba partnership their data partnership with the nba where they're tracking you know all this data from the ball and like that was cool but yeah the the company itself was like eh whatever yeah so i i'm i'm with you on that totally see that uh lolly were you trying to say something

i didn't want to no not really i just i just love that you mentioned because i think that's important that you mentioned a little bit earlier how it's very financially reasonable for a family of four for instance to go to a Formula E race and that it's going to be a lovely weekend for them there's so much to offer as you said it's not like you're spending a thousand dollars on a ticket to be in a grandstand and just you can only stay in your section I'd like to know given given your that you know IndyCar well and I know IndyCar and you have a lot of access to the drivers in IndyCar more than maybe you should, to be quite frank. I'm wondering what it's like in Formula E.

Will the people be at use? You mentioned an autograph session. Are there sort of upgraded paddock passes where people can walk around, see the garages, et cetera? Tell us a little bit about that, what the fans expected of Formula E weekend. Yeah, I think, you know, it's been great. Since I've been, you know,

I've been given previously all access at Formula 1, so I know what that looks like. And obviously IndyCar being on the multiple teams. You know, with IndyCar, it was great because we could bring guests, partners into the pits during the race. And they're two meters from the wall. From a safety aspect, you know, my cars come in on fire and had partners there. And there's hoses and tires around. A little bit sketch, right?

From a hospitality commercial standpoint, I love it. Because you can't get them that close in other kinds of racing, right? Or put them in a tower above the generator, right? looking straight down so i think it's great to be able to do that in with us in fe you do have the opportunity to get different levels of of access and i think that the the drivers are accessible and we do have the sessions and we do take them and do different appearances with them so we do have that level they're definitely not as restricted as formula one drivers for sure so they are definitely more more accessible more fluid um yeah so i can tell you that uh

funny story i was at a nascar race bristol which is the smallest oval they have uh i was in i was during the race i was in this pits area the garage area whatever i call it and uh i almost got hit by joey logano coming in i'm walking i'm walking through joey logano's car is limping into around the the oval and he had to come in and he had to retire the car it was so bad and i'm walking by he looked he gave me i have a photo of it actually of him staring at me like what the man and he's like but it was funny because you say that i wasn't i walked away from it like that was the coolest freak i was a guest on that was the coolest thing ever right and i had a guest with me who was like didn't not even really into motorsport and he was like

That was freaking awesome. It was, like you said, it's just that level of experience. You can't get that in a format. You can't borrow an IndyCar. I've been a guest at IndyCar in live pits. And there is a rule, Lee,

for people like us so we don't get burned. No open-toe shoes for girls and no bare legs. At least they make sure that you have no open toes, your legs are covered. But the number of women

that were guests of mine in, like, shorts and shorts and skirts, I mean... We had, I'll tell you two quick stories. We had one partner who, I'll tell you two quick stories. We had one partner who brought her dog into the pits and was kicked out twice. And she, cause she, she couldn't, she had to break the rules. And then she had the dog, tiny dog about this big. she the tires are stacked right the tires that the drivers are going to be on now if you know anything about racing tires are everything right they are taking care of like babies for a photo op she put the dog claws and all on top of the tire and I looked at my colleague I'm

like you know and she's they're spending whatever millions of dollars right her in her comment like someone's going to tell her to get her dog off of our tires you know like so that was one story And then on a more serious note, Vincenzo, going back to something you said, when you talk about bringing a race car to a partner activation, we had a company that was a tech company and they were a sponsor of the IndyCar team. And their main problem, and this probably goes across any sort of racing series, and I use this case study even in selling F1s, their problem at conferences, and they did dozens of conferences during the year, was lead generation. They weren't getting the lead generation they wanted in their normal stand when they had a normal stand. So they partner with the race and that gave them the IP rights to promote the hell out of their relationship. So the backdrops all changed to a race car with their branding on it. TV screens were put up with edited videos of the car with their branding on it at races. then they bought a show car and they put a show car there and they put a simulator at their at their conferences that they went to lead generation went up 200 so there's a real life as you know as you can see i like i like numbers right so there's a real life stat and and i think that go can go

across you know any sort of racing series i mean we have demo cars show cars going around the world that we're putting one big one up i can't even say where but somewhere in the world yeah a huge Which side of the Atlantic Ocean? The other side. Okay. The other side. Okay. The other side.

Hopefully it means from other end. Huge experiential activation that's going to live 24-7, 365. Wow. We think it'll do really well in helping to promote the series. That's spectacular. That's a pretty big deal. Yeah. And it's very visceral, right?

Once you see these cars, I remember when I was a little girl in Colombia, they're in a park. For some reason, I have no context for this, but they had a champ car at the time and a Formula One side by side. And it was, I was already a race fan because I've been a race fan since a very young age. And it was spectacular for me. I could not believe that I could see the two cars, see the size differences, see everything. It really, I was already hooked by that time. But that really actually seeing the cars in some random park in Bogota, Colombia really fomented a lifelong sort of obsession. Yeah. And that theme, let's take that into the business realm. So that theme of that excitement and what it what it did in that visceral feeling. That's why we invite people to races from the business side. That's why we host people at races who are qualified prospects. They've shown interest is because we tell them we just get them to a race.

if we get them to a race we get them next to the cars we give them the money can't buy experience they're going to fall in love and then they're going to they're going to choose the driver that they like and the stories that they like and i like to i like i know you guys are also about the business so that's why i want to steer it back to you know when we talk about prospects and partnerships you know we say get them to a race there's nothing like i mean you that feeling and it's you can't even describe it thinking you know the first time i heard cars on a track yeah wasn't even it wasn't formula one it wasn't now it wasn't a big series it was at lime rock park in connecticut right that was like the first time i ever saw cars go around track live

you know they were historic cars it was a mix of it wasn't even a race it was just cars going around track loud and fast and i was like i'm in love right that was it it was and i had like lali i had already been watching formula one i had already been watching racing before that but the first time i felt it it created this different type of connection which is why i still complain about the way cars sound and i want them to be loud and i want them to make noise like i like that you want the screaming v10s what's that you want the screaming v10s i do i do want the screaming 10s although i do completely appreciate the electric and i and i really love uh this actually leads to a really good question and maybe maybe the last question

unless Lali has some others, but what is, what do you think that one thing that people completely misunderstand about Formula E? What is the one thing that you would want people to change their mind about? Hmm. Good question. Well, I mean, first I'd like, I, you know, IndyCar, Formula One, NASCAR, decades and decades and generations and generations of building roots with fans, sports fans. Formula E has been around 12 years. We're going into our 12th season, you know, we're not we're not new but we're not old and so we're still going through a little bit of that um so awareness is is one but what do i think i just want them to get i would say watch the racing more versus other series and just watch what happens on track and find a favorite driver or whoever

resonates with you you know like lucas would resonate more with me and dan would resonate more with my 19 year old daughter. Right. So you find your driver that you align with and, and then just watch the racing and hopefully you find some excitement in the racing. Yeah. Race fans are a loyal crowd. I find I've been brand loyal to many brands that have supported racing. So that's something you should, you should, you can use in your sales, which is that once you get it on a team and on a brand and they support the team and the driver that you like, you're going to have a lot of brand loyalty. And I do have a final question. And I do love all my children the same, meaning all the teams and all the drivers. But yeah, I mean, I'm happy to answer like business questions, like being in the depths of partnerships for a global sports series every day. It's a unique business.

So just a little fun question to end it. Not thinking just Formula E globally speaking, any sort of form of racing. What is your favorite racetrack on earth and why? that I've been to or that I want to go to whatever it is you're like whatever it is because you've watched plenty of motorsports too

yeah whether it's because of the mystique of it and you'd love to go or because you've been and it was incredible racing or it was great

as a family holiday whatever what's your favorite race truck on earth I'll give you two I'll give you two one Monaco because both Formula E

and Formula One race in Monaco and it is just storied well I'll give you three I'll give number one a number one I should have said

number one And I mean, I love Formula ER racing, but the Indy 500, spectacular event. If you've never been there with 350,000 people, and I'm so fortunate to have had the experiences there that I have. The Indy 500 is crazy. Yes, it's just an oval, but it's an experience. And then Monaco, we both race in Monaco. I think, you know, that the legacy of that track, it's really cool, even though the racing is, we're more exciting than the Formula One because we just, you know, obviously we pass more. So that's two.

One I haven't been to, which I really want to go to, is Baku, Azerbaijan. Yeah. A Monaco-esque track. Yeah. I mean, maybe because I'm a little bit older and I like the classic buildings and, you know, the street and everything like that. So I've really been hunkering to go to Baku one day. Kind of proves the point of having how these races in Formula E will help as well. It brings so much PR for the city, right?

When would you have considered visiting Baku otherwise? And then are you like, oh, this looks like a really lovely city. Look at all these old buildings. So it proves the point that it's a big deal to get a race because it's such good PR for your town. Like I said earlier, I really do want to go to the Tokyo F.E. race. It's a night race, and I guess that the vibe of the whole city being so electric, it really lends itself. And like my colleagues have told me, it's been an incredible race. So, I mean, Tokyo just being going to Tokyo would be great, but going to Tokyo F.E. would be even greater.

Yeah, there's so many, you know, like there's so many great racetracks. but do you know if there's anything that exists that awards for racetrack? Good question. I do not. Because what is the definitive way to define this is the best racetrack? I think it's going to be so personal, right?

There's no hardware. There's no hardware. There's definitely no hardware. I mean, if only there was something, it would be great if there was something that said, this is the best track. This has got the best facilities. This has the best premium hospitality.

this has the best racing I mean an experience we have to pitch the FIA to put it into an award ceremony

of some sort I guess seriously but if I had to answer that question I'm going to answer the question I like that

it would have to be one of the endurance races I think so like the Nürburgring or yeah Le Mans

yeah I can't speak French Le Mans you can't she knows you can't speak French French mount panorama all ones i haven't been to but yeah i don't know i don't know that's

i'd like to go to spa i think spa would be mine yeah yeah sure and also because i need to pick this one that's why it's like i know it's going right it depends on what you're looking for but spa just even sitting on a hillside i don't even need anything fancy at spa i just want to sit on a hillside exactly with a beer and walk the race but you know i'll tell you when when effie came to miami in 2016 raced downtown miami on the streets putting that race on was and you know i was such a newbie so i didn't really have the challenges i know about the challenges yeah a lot more now but it was so difficult to put that race on i mean i don't think we had the permit to like two hours before we had to move qualifying was it was a mayhem we almost didn't

have the race. I mean, there was arguing between different parties. So, but at the end of the day, we raced, of course, it's my hometown. We're racing around at that point, the American Airlines arena. Now the Casillas are, you know, right on the streets of downtown Miami, the condos are there. It was awesome. And we, we actually had, I remember the number, we had almost 30,000 fans and we were only expecting about 20,000. As an organizer, we ran out of water. So we, during the day so we had no water to sell anymore um i would love another race in downtown miami are you guys still in rome you guys left rome right yeah not in rome but it was in rome that was a really cool i like that you pre that was it yeah i think if he's done like i think that

if he's done paris and geneva like really cool cities i think that's the that if to me if i had if i had to pick as someone who completely comes out of nowhere and says i'm i love formula one and indycar and now i'm gonna try and watch this or go to these right i think it's just cool that you guys run in these awesome cities that yeah and you can run in these cities right it's it's feasible it's like a feasible option like you can't run formula for example formula there's a feasibility study then it's feasible of course of course but it's i think it's more feasible Like, you're not going to see an F1 race in Rome, right? No, we get a good amount of incoming interest from cities around the world.

Obviously, we have a whole division or host cities division that will qualify cities. Sure. And it's a massive undertaking, as you can imagine. Yeah. Two, three year or more undertaking on when we would go to a city. It takes a long time. I've been really fortunate to sit in on some meetings, and I find it interesting because I'm interested in that kind of thing. But all of the logistics, all of the contingencies that you have to think about, to me, it's just it's fascinating.

And, you know, it takes a long time, but we're going to go to some some amazing cities in the next few years. We're excited for you. We're excited to have you on the show. I'm thinking Miami, maybe we'll see you, maybe London, the doubleheader at the end of next summer. That's that's a beautiful place to end it. So maybe we'll catch you there. We definitely have to come out to the only car race that goes through a building. There you go. Sold. I'm there. We have to get business to speed out of some Formula E races. We'd love to have you.

Yeah, I'd love to have you. That would be the goal. Thank you. Lee, give us the 30-second pitch. What do you want people to know about you? Where can they find you? How can they connect with you? Sure.

Well, I think where we all met is great. I mean, I do a tremendous amount of business on LinkedIn, so I'm happy to connect with people on LinkedIn, talk about the business of motorsports. I do probably so much more on LinkedIn than I do anywhere else. I really like to write. So I do, I do publish some articles on different things. And if you're interested, I'd like to read. So I have my own website, Zolman.com. And then if you're on the gram and you want to do, it's just my name and that's I'm public. And there's nothing interesting except more of my travels racing and occasionally like a pizza I make. So the best place to get a hold of me. Very good. Perfect. We will, uh, we'll make sure the audience knows that it really

appreciate spending time with us and talking a little about formula e i think it's it's definitely something that i have wanted to cover more formula e i know the audience has asked me a lot for more formula e more more than just formula one which is really cool it lends to or you know it for me it was it started with a lot of formula one formula one heavy some indie car some nascar in that people have said well okay this is cool i want to learn more about other motorsport series racing series. And so Formula E has been, seems to be top of mind for a lot of folks that at least read the Business Speed newsletter. They are always asking for Formula E. So we will do a better job of promoting Formula E. Now we have a friend at Formula E, so we can leverage your

expertise anytime. Yeah. And I'm going to make sure I send you guys the press releases when we sign a lot of partners. Perfect. Please. For our partnerships and the unique aspects, the amazing absolutely partners yeah yeah absolutely thanks for stopping by the show and thank you all yeah have a great rest of your day cheers cheers