Welcoming Teri Smith to the Board of Trustees: Building Trust Into the Foundation
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Behind every trusted fund is a trusted framework—and the people who shape it.
That’s why we’re honored to welcome Teri Smith, Chief Operating Officer of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), to the Champion Fund Board of Trustees.
Teri brings more than two decades of experience leading with clarity, discipline, and deep commitment to protecting those often overlooked in traditional financial and operational structures. From the boardroom to the locker room, her work has helped define what governance and advocacy can look like when they’re built around real people and real outcomes.
A Career Defined by Stewardship
Teri Smith currently serves as Chief Operating Officer of the NFLPA, where she oversees over 130 employees across legal, operational, and business strategy. She’s the first woman and first Black executive to hold this role in the organization’s history—bringing representation and rigor to a position that supports thousands of professional athletes.
She joined the NFLPA in 2009 as Special Counsel and rapidly rose through the ranks, becoming Deputy Managing Director in 2010, Acting COO in 2019, and formally named COO in 2021.
Beyond her executive role, Teri is the founding architect and served as the Chairwoman of the Board for The Trust—a pioneering program launched in 2013 to serve former NFL players with resources in health, wellness, career development, and financial education. She helped bring the program to life and continues to steward its strategic direction.
Her academic foundation includes a summa cum laude degree in Accounting from Howard University and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. Teri began her professional career at Latham & Watkins, advising on M&A transactions for Fortune 500 clients before transitioning into the world of player representation and union leadership.
Trusted Voice in the Room
Teri joins Champion Fund at a formative stage—where decisions around structure, oversight, and investor protections carry long-term significance.
She brings an operational lens sharpened by decades of real-world leadership—guiding one of the most influential labor organizations in professional sports, and shaping the very systems that provide structure and security to those operating inside high-performance, high-stakes careers.
Her governance style balances empathy and enforcement. She understands what fiduciary stewardship looks like in practice—not just on paper—and ensures that access, transparency, and protection are not competing priorities, but shared responsibilities.
Teri’s presence helps us uphold the standard we’ve set from day one: to build a fund with infrastructure that is durable, inclusive, and built to serve.
A Signal of the Standards We’re Setting
At Champion Fund, our foundation is our differentiator. We’re building a long-term investment platform that reflects the same care, credibility, and institutional-grade design traditionally reserved for the ultra-wealthy—but designed to welcome a broader community of long-term investors.
Teri has led organizations through that exact transformation before. She’s not here to advise from the sidelines—she’s here to help us build a platform that works across cycles, across communities, and across investor profiles. And we’re better because of it.
We’re proud to have Teri’s leadership guiding Champion Fund forward—and even prouder to have her voice shaping how we build trust from day one.
Stay connected as we continue to build Champion Fund with the same level of care, clarity, and ambition that defines the leaders guiding it.
