Brewers promote Wronski to COO
Marti Wronski was perfectly happy in academia and had two young children, so she initially told now-Brewers president Rick Schlesinger no. He'd called Wronski's former employer, Foley and Lardner law firm, looking for someone who could potentially serve as the franchise's general counsel. Recommendation in hand, Schlesinger called her at home.
She interpreted the position as a temporary in-house fix until the Brewers could find someone more permanent, but even then, she was too content teaching at Marquette University Law School. The sentiment lasted until dinner, when she told her husband, Andy, about the call.
“He said, ‘I have never ever told you what to do in your career, but you need to call him back tomorrow,'” Wronski recalled.
Only female COO in Major League Baseball
Two decades later, she's now the Milwaukee Brewers' chief operating officer and one of the highest-ranking female executives in Major League Baseball. The Brewers announced a pair of promotions Friday, including Wronski and the ascension of Jason Hartlund to executive vice president and chief commercial officer.
Wronski, 50, served as general counsel and then senior vice president in administration. Her role entailed the oversight of several departments and the team's legal affairs, government relations and compliance, with work that spanned a wide breadth from contract work to trademarks to software to duties with the club's other properties in Arizona, the Dominican Republic and North Carolina at Class A Carolina. The upcoming season will be her 20th with the Brewers.
She was an athlete growing up in Neenah before attending St. Norbert College in Green Bay and then law school in Madison, and each of her four sons (Jonah, 20; Luke, 19; Sam, 17; Charlie, 14) are all avid baseball players in their own right and fans of the team. The family lives in Bayside.
“Every once in a while I'd stop and look at them when I'm trying to be the field-trip mom while (balancing) doing my job well and I'd ask, ‘Do you guys want me to stay home?'” Wronski said. “Every time, they'd ask, ‘Does that mean you wouldn't work for the Brewers anymore?' and then say, ‘Nope, we're good.' ... I really never looked back; this place has been a fantastic fit.”
She becomes the only female COO for an MLB team. Two teams have women in the president of business operations role: the Seattle Mariners (Catie Griggs) and Miami Marlins (Caroline O'Connor). Marlins GM Kim Ng is baseball's lone female general manager.
The Brewers have not had a COO since Rick Schlesinger was promoted to president of business operations after the 2018 season. Wronski is now the highest-ranking female executive for the organization since Wendy Selig-Prieb served as president and chairman before the organization was sold to Mark Attanasio in 2005.
“I have never felt that somebody here was thinking, ‘This lady doesn't know what she's talking about,' or ‘here's the ceiling, here's how far she can go,'” Wronski said. “I haven't felt that gender piece, which is fantastic and has allowed us to very naturally stay focused on getting the work done. There's no doubt it's out there in the public, and when you think about the fact that there's only four people elevated to this level in the league right now . ... It's troubling and it's odd, but at the same time, I'm so happy to be part of what is obviously a movement forward.
“It's one of the awesome things about this organization and one of the reasons I've stuck along as long as I have, that forward-looking thinking.”