CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – The Minnesota Vikings hired Browns vice president of football operations Kwesi Adofo-Mensah as their next general manager.
The Vikings announced the hire Wednesday evening.
The news comes after the Vikings’ other finalist, Chiefs executive director of player personnel Ryan Poles was hired as the Bears general manager Tuesday.
“We are thrilled to welcome Kwesi to the Minnesota Vikings. His unique background, variety of strong football experiences, vision for success and leadership presence immediately stood out to us,” Vikings owner/president Mark Wilf said in a statement announcing the hire. “Kwesi is naturally committed and driven to building the best teams through consensus building and the pursuit of information. We believe he will immediately make us better as a team and organization.”
Adofo-Mensah, who interviewed Tuesday for a second time with Minnesota, joined the Browns in 2020 after being hired away from San Francisco by executive vice president of football operations and general manager Andrew Berry.
Under a resolution to encourage the development of minority head coaches and general managers that was passed in November 2020, the Browns will receive a compensatory third-round draft pick for 2022 and 2023 from the league with the Vikings' hire of Adofo-Mensah, which is a big loss for Berry and the Browns.
Berry collaborated with Adofo-Mensah on roster and strategic football decisions and considered him basically his assistant general manager.
Adofo-Mensah, who also helped Berry oversee and manage the day-to-day operations of the team, began his career working in the 49ers football research and development department. He rose quickly through the organization serving as manager for five years prior to being named the director of the department.
In 2019, the 49ers landed the top seed in the NFC and won the conference championship before falling to Baltimore in Super Bowl XLVII.
During his tenure with the 49ers, Adofo-Mensah led the team’s efforts to develop and implement advanced quantitative methods for game strategy and personnel evaluation.
Before joining the 49ers in 2013, Adofo-Mensah was an associate portfolio manager at Taylor Woods Capital and vice president/executive director at Credit Suisse as a commodities trader. A graduate of Princeton University with a bachelor’s degree in economics, he earned a master’s degree in economics from Stanford University.
