Ned Colletti

Biography

Ned Colletti has worked in professional sports for nearly 50 years and is one of the very few American Sports executives to work in two major sports - Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League.  For 40 years he worked in MLB and became one of the winningest executives during his final 25 years in the game having scouted, signed and developed numerous championship caliber and Hall of Fame Baseball players.  In 2025, he was named the General Manager of baseball’s Team Italy which will compete in the 2026 World Baseball Classic Tournament.

He led the Los Angeles Dodgers as General Manager for nine seasons, leading the team to five post-season appearances including three appearances in the League Championship Series. The five post-season appearances during his tenure equaled the then-best nine-year period in the history of the Los Angeles franchise. During his nine years as GM, no National League GM won more games than Colletti.

In his final MLB season in 2021, with a team that included some of his best player acquisitions, the Dodgers qualified for the post-season for the 13th time during Colletti's 17-year organizational tenure as he transitioned into a career involving being a television baseball analyst for the Dodgers Spectrum SportsNetLA network; a new opportunity to teach at Pepperdine University; and a professional scouting and staff leadership development position for the San Jose Sharks of the National Hockey League.

Prior to working in Los Angeles, he began his baseball career with his hometown team, the Chicago Cubs, where he worked for 13 seasons. He left Chicago for California and spent 11 years with the San Francisco Giants, the Dodgers fiercest rival. As the Assistant General Manager in SF, he helped change and build a winning culture that helped lead the Giants to four post-season appearances while he was there and three World Championships after he left.

During a nine-year stretch, the Giants played just 15 of 1,458 games eliminated from post-season play. While Colletti was in LA, the Giants continued building the culture he helped develop and won three World Series between 2010 and 1014. The breakeven point in Major League Baseball is 81 wins. Teams Colletti assembled, or helped assemble, surpassed the 81-win mark 23 times in his last 25 seasons; including 19 seasons in which it surpassed 90 wins. Of the many top level baseball executives only one has a better won-loss percentage during those final 25 MLB seasons. He has helped four teams advance to the World Series, two lost in Game 7 elimination games and one won the World Series.  He also negotiated baseball contracts for more than 25 years totaling more than $2B.

Colletti was born in Chicago and lived the first five years of his life in a garage before the family moved into an 899-square foot, four-room brick home in suburban Franklin Park, two miles southeast of O'Hare International Airport. He was the first in his family to attend and graduate from a university. From his blue collar roots, he developed a work ethic that is relentless, loyal and passionate and has given him the background to relate to both corporate leaders and executives as well as entry level employees.

Respecting his career opportunities and having a strong desire to give back, Colletti has helped many local charitable organizations, specializing in financial assistance and mentoring help for students. He is on the board of Vision to Learn, a non-profit which helps children in under served areas receive eye exams and glasses free of charge. He also works very closely with A Place Called Home and Get Lit-Words Ignite, two organizations that have helped under served and under resourced students gain confidence, establish and stay on a good path, set goals and achieve success.

His fifth book and first in 30 years was released in October, 2017 and was on the Amazon book best seller list for 22 weeks: The Big Chair: The Smooth Hops and Bad Bounces from The Inside World of the Acclaimed Los Angeles Dodgers General Manager (Penguin, Random House). Besides being the keynote speaker to top executives from many large companies, law firms and other professional sports franchises, Colletti has spoken to many collegians. Besides teaching at Pepperdine, he has lectured at the following universities: USC, UCLA, Stanford, University of San Francisco, Arizona State, Michigan, Illinois, DePaul, Cal State Fullerton, Concordia University in Montreal, Que., Loyola Marymount, Southwestern School of Law (in Los Angeles) and his alma mater Northern Illinois University. A few of the topics he lectures and leads discussions on are:

• Managing a prized civic entity through a public relations crises and being successful
• Building a strong, vibrant culture
• Inspirational and motivational life lessons
• Negotiation styles & techniques
• Leadership: How to lead at every level
• Corporate team building
• Education

Education

• BS, Journalism, Northern Illinois University, 1976, Dean's List