Chief Business Development Officer Jennifer Azzi

Basketball legend Jennifer Azzi joined the Aces in December 2021 as the team’s chief business development officer.

Azzi led the Stanford Cardinal to the NCAA Championship in 1990 where she was named the tournament’s most outstanding player. The Oak Ridge, Tennessee, native was also named the NCAA Player of the Year as a senior, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in economics.

After a four-year career playing overseas, the 5-8 guard returned home as one of the founding members of the American Basketball League. A three-time ABL All-Star, she played for the San Jose Lasers from 1996 to 1999.

After the ABL folded in 1999, Azzi was drafted by the WNBA’s Detroit Shock in the first round (5th overall) of the 1999 WNBA draft. During her four years in the league, she played for the Shock (1999), Utah Starzz (2000-02) and the San Antonio Silver Stars (2003).

Each season, the guard led her respective teams in minutes played. In 2000, she led the league in free-throw percentage, shooting .930 from the line, and set the league all-time single season record for 3-point field goal percentage, connecting on 51.7 percent from beyond the arc.

Azzi is still the WNBA’s career leader in 3-point field goal percentage after making 45.8 percent of her shots from distance over her five-year career.

A member of the historic 1995-96 USA Basketball Women’s National Team that earned a perfect 60-0 record that culminated with an Olympic gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. In her 12 years as an athlete on various USA Basketball teams, Azzi also played on three USA World Cup squads, winning gold in 1990 and 1998 and a bronze medal in 1994.

Azzi was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009 as a player and honored in 2016, along with her 1996 U.S. Olympic teammates, with the Trailblazer of the Game award by the WBHoF.

From 2010-16, Azzi served as the head coach of the University of San Francisco Women’s Basketball Team, leading the Dons to back-to-back postseason appearances in her final two years. Her 2015-16 squad went 21-12, and earned the program’s first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1997.

Azzi stepped down as San Francisco’s head coach in 2016 and shortly thereafter became an associate vice president of development for the university. She has also served as a spokesperson and ambassador for Jr. NBA since 2016.

Over the past several years she has also worked as a global director for the NBA Academy, and as an analyst for NBC Sports Bay Area’s coverage of the Golden State Warriors.

NBA Academy is the NBA’s international elite development initiative that consists of a network of elite basketball training centers around the world to develop top international male and female prospects. NBA Academies include educational development for the prospects and mark the NBA’s most significant investment in elite player development.

Azzi is serving her second stint as a member of the USA Basketball board of directors (2005-2008 and 2021-2024).

>>For more, see Jennifer Azzi’s’ athlete bio.