About

A leading business and legal strategist for more than 25 years, Joshua Gordon is an experienced educator, consultant, arbitrator, negotiator, facilitator, and organizational capability builder. He specializes in sports industry governance, strategy and crisis management that builds upon a deep history of contexts that have included business-to-business, organizational change, energy, environmental, real estate and housing, family, and gang-related challenges. He is the founder and lead practitioner at the Sports Conflict Institute (SCI), which supports competitive goals in athletics through understanding, preventing, and resolving destructive conflict inside and outside the lines and specializes in building high-performance culture.

• Visionary who specializes in assessment and complex strategy to ensure optimal performance for teams and organizations.
• Leading negotiation strategist adept at understanding and aligning interests in complex, multi-party challenges.
• Educator who leverages cutting-edge pedagogy to ensure durable learning outcomes.
• Empowering and participatory leadership style that breeds accountability, teamwork, and continuous improvement.

Gordon has advised on complex negotiations, built organizations' negotiation capabilities, and taught executives in such companies as HP, Young & Rubicam, Ogilvy, and McDonalds. He coached two University of Oregon Law School students to a National Championship in the American Bar Association Negotiation Competition. He especially appreciates and enjoys complex, multi-party conflict that requires non-traditional solutions to impasse.

Gordon has developed creative organizational solutions to ensure competitive success for a number of teams and leagues from collegiate through the professional levels. He has presented to audiences that have included individuals and teams from the NCAA, NBA, NFL, MLS, NRL, MLB, USATF, USTA, PGA, LPGA, and ATP.

Gordon is the coauthor of The Sports Playbook: Building Teams That Outperform Year After Year (Routledge, 2018), a book that introduces helps teams in any context fulfill its true potential.

In addition to his career in conflict management and dispute resolution, Gordon is a competitive runner with recent Masters All-American performances in the mile, 3K, 5K, and 10K distances. He competes as part of the University of Oregon Running Club and the Bowerman Track Club.

Gordon can be reached via Zoom on Tuesdays from 10:00–11:00 a.m.

• JD, Suffolk University Law School
• MA, University of Massachusetts
• BA, Psychology and Sociology, University of Massachusetts Amherst / Brandeis University

• Academic Committee, Oregon Executive MBA Program, Lundquist College of Business, University of Oregon, 2019–present
• Faculty Advisor, Oregon Consulting Group, Lundquist College of Business, University of Oregon, 2019–2021
• Program Manager, Warsaw Sports Business Center, Lundquist College of Business, University of Oregon, 2016–2019
• Director of Minors and Undergraduate Sports Business, Lundquist College of Business, University of Oregon, 2018–2019
• Program Director, Competition Not Conflict Program, School of Law, University of Oregon, 2010–2013
• Faculty, School of Law, University of Oregon, 2010–2013
• Adjunct Faculty, University of Massachusetts Boston and Boston College
• Teaching and Research Assistantships, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Arbitrator and Chair, USA Track and Field SafeSport Appeals Committee, 2021–Present
• Arbitrator, Court of Arbitration for Sport, Switzerland, 2019–Present
• Editorial Board, LawInSport, London, England, 2018–Present
• Founder and Senior Practitioner, Sports Conflict Institute LLC, 2013–Present
• Principal and Practitioner, Part of the Solution ADR Services (POTSADR), 1993–2013
• Organizational Change Leader, Manulife Financial Services/John Hancock Financial Services, 1998–2005
• Organizational Developer, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1993–1998

• Woodard Family Foundation Fellow, 2019–Present

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