Jennifer Koester
President, Chief Operating Officer | Sphere
In January 2024, Sphere Entertainment named Jennifer Koester — a veteran Fortune 100 executive — as the first president of Sphere business operations, a new portfolio charged with leading “the strategy and execution of all business aspects of Sphere, a next-generation entertainment medium that is redefining the future of live entertainment.”
Koester’s appointment came four months after U2 opened the immersive, technologically super-advanced venue in Las Vegas.
Since then, Sphere has presented concert series from Phish, Dead & Company and the Eagles. In addition, it expanded its offerings beyond live music, hosting the NHL Draft in June and UFC in September, both events lauded for showing how Sphere’s capabilities — namely, its massive high-definition screen and state-of-the-art sound system — can be utilized for offerings beyond music. Part of Koester’s initial task is “developing a corporate conference business for product launches and other events,” which came to bear with Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Antonio Neri’s keynote presentation as part of HPE Discover in June.
In addition, the venue rolled out a new Sphere Experience: a concert film of U2’s performance that followed the Darren Aronofsky-helmed “Postcard from Earth”.
Koester says every new event teaches Sphere’s team something new about the building, lessons that are rolled into whatever’s next.
“Sphere is unlike any venue, and there is a learning curve to that, but Sphere really is for all artists and organizations that have a vision and want to build a show for this new medium,” she said. “It’s been exciting to see how each artist and organization has approached creating content for Sphere in their own way – a concert and a keynote are both leveraging our display plane, the world’s highest resolution LED screen, to share different stories that connect with different audiences,” Koester says.
She says much of that education is done through Sphere Studios, an immersive content studio dedicated to creating experiences exclusively for Sphere, where the Studios team works closely with creative partners.
“We want everyone who does an event at Sphere to fully understand all the ways Sphere can help them make an impact that’s unlike any other venue,” she said.
Sphere certainly made an impact in year one, but the challenge is maintaining that momentum and keeping audiences and partners excited about its possibilities.
“We’re particularly focused on building out the team behind this next-generation medium, and like everything else with Sphere, there’s not a ‘traditional’ mold for who we’re looking for,” she said. “In my own career, I’ve had different experiences that are in the gray space at the intersection of technology and entertainment, and it’s exciting to apply that experience at Sphere. So as we think about building out our team across the venue itself, Sphere Studios, and more, what I’m really excited about is the opportunity to pull together talent from a wide range of experiences and continue to disrupt the industry by pushing boundaries beyond a traditional venue.” — J.R. Lind
