STACY JOHNS
COO and CFO
Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC)
Stacy Johns arrived at LAFC in 2020, after 16 years with the Indianapolis Colts – the last six of those years as the NFL team’s vice president of finance and HR. At that time, the COVID pandemic still held its grip over professional sports in general, and LAFC in specific. The team was closing its third season of competition – an erratic one with an abbreviated schedule, empty stadiums, and a wildly uncertain future – a less than ideal environment for LAFC’s second-ever CFO to enter. Johns and team leaned into the company’s special events business, expanding it so that BMO Stadium would eventually host twenty concerts and 170 events each year, from Michelle Obama speaking engagements to Hollywood premiere parties, to various film and commercial shoots – creating $3 million in annual net revenue.
When Johns first arrived, LAFC was just six years old, and its in-house financial structures reflected its youth. Johns revamped LAFC’s budget processes, department by department, then ensured that each team met its fiscal goals, which – combined with its special events evolution – helped the company emerge from the pandemic stronger than when it entered.
In 2023 Johns landed the largest naming rights deal in the history of Major League Soccer (aligning LAFC and its stadium with BMO). Later that year, LAFC became the first and only MLS club with a valuation exceeding one billion dollars. An open, relatable, approachable executive, Johns has un-siloed LAFC’s financial processes so that stakeholders across the organization can take part in an aspect of the business that supports all others.
