WOMEN OF LIVE

Jayne McGivern

President, Development and Construction

MSG Entertainment

For the last three years, all eyes in the venue space have been on Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp., which in early 2018 announced two cutting-edge MSG Sphere venues, plotted for Las Vegas and London.

In Jayne McGivern, the company’s president of development and construction, MSG found an executive with the ambition and mettle to steer the daunting, trans-Atlantic project. “With a long-term vision for more than one venue, I believed it was important for us to focus on construction management, to not only drive the completion of the Las Vegas venue, but also so that we could retain the knowledge gained for future MSG Sphere projects,” said McGivern, who joined the company in January 2018. “We achieved that target in December 2020 when we assumed the role of construction manager for MSG Sphere in Las Vegas.”

While live events have been mostly on hold for the year, construction of the spaces where they take place hasn’t. “We are making great progress in Las Vegas, where our team achieved several significant milestones over the past year which keeps us on track for our expected calendar 2023 opening,” McGivern said. “And, in London, the project is currently going through the planning process, and that team is doing a brilliant job as well.”

Not that it’s been easy for McGivern and her team.

“We are spread across three different international time zones, and managing to keep our projects moving forward in a positive and productive way during the pandemic has been a challenge that the team all rose to meet head on,” she said.

McGivern’s influence extends beyond the Sphere. Internally, she’s worked to improve MSG’s diversity and inclusion initiatives, which include the Diversity and Inclusion Council created by the company in 2019. “Diversity and inclusivity should be the norm,” she said.

— Eric Renner Brown