Stephanie McMahon’s entire life has been consumed with WWE, and these days, Vince McMahon’s youngest child is the first Chief Brand Officer in World Wrestling Entertainment history. She is a trailblazer in the sports-entertainment industry, but as she revealed on Monday with Moose & Maggie, just because she’s a McMahon doesn’t mean she was born into the C-Suite.
“I don’t reflect much because I’m always forward looking at how we can grow WWE, and there’s always work to do…but I started interning in high school, working the switchboards and interning all around the company,” Stephanie said Monday, as the first guest in a series spotlighting trailblazing women in the sports and entertainment worlds. “When I graduated college, I worked on our sales team and became talent on our shows, and then took over our creative writing, which I did for nearly 15 years. Ultimately, that brought me to becoming the first-ever Chief Brand Officer for WWE. There’s no stopping our company and what we can do, and our goal is to grow.”
The “Women’s Evolution” has been a huge focal point of the company in recent years, spotlighted by female performers first getting their own pay-per-view event, 2018’s Evolution, before later seeing Ronda Rousey, Becky Lynch, and Charlotte Flair headline WrestleMania 35 at MetLife Stadium – an event where their main event match broke the female entertainment revenue record.
But it’s the cultural impact that evolution had that struck Stephanie the most.
“Our first-ever women’s match in Abu Dhabi, which took us six years to get there; they had to change their gear with only heads and hands showing, but during that match, everyone was chanting “this is hope,” and little girls had tears in their eyes in the front row,” Stephanie said. “That impact, and the impact that led to us having two women’s matches in Saudi Arabia, where the chants became “this is awesome” – that’s exactly what it should be. Those moments make me most proud, because it shows the impact our universe can have all over the world.”
Stephanie’s goal for WWE is “true parity on the roster – may the best storylines with the best characters win, male or female” – but even as a C-level executive and company namesake, she knows what it is like to be underestimated or, in some cases, simply looked down upon in her role.
“I think that sometimes there can certainly be cultural differences as to who has voices in the room, and there have definitely been particular instances overseas where I have felt that,” she said, “but you can’t back down.
You need to make sure you have the right colleagues and representation with you, because you’re there for a reason, and ultimately, you have to do the best you can to get the deal done.”
In addition to being that fierce executive, Stephanie is also a mother; her and Paul Levesque, another one of WWE’s EVPs better known to fans as Triple H, have three daughters aged 14, 12, and 10 – and again, despite being company namesakes born into the business, they may want to think of a career outside sports entertainment…because it might be easier?
“I think anything they do, it’s important to work your way from the bottom up and respect every role, because every single role matters – from custodians and people in the mailroom, to data analysts, to superstars in the ring or our ring crews, it takes so many different people in so many jobs to make this machine go,” Stephanie said. “That’s true in any business, so it’s important to work from the ground up. Whatever they want to do in life and are passionate about, I want that for them…but it will be harder for them to get into WWE, because they’ve got to earn it that much more!”
Listen to Stephanie McMahon’s entire segment with Moose & Maggie below!
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