From Coyotes QB to USD Foundation CEO, leader to share insight on building workplace culture

If you want a unique perspective on leadership, ask a quarterback.

For football player turned USD Foundation president and CEO Noah Shepard, life on and off the field has provided valuable insight into leading teams and fostering culture.

Shepard, a Colorado native, first stepped into South Dakota for a recruiting visit at USD, which led to four years as the Coyotes’ quarterback and a first job playing football professionally after graduation in 2010. He briefly joined the Green Bay Packers before playing in the Canadian Football League.

Shepard returned to his alma mater in 2021 as a campaign director for the USD Foundation, before being promoted to vice president of development in 2022 and assuming the role of president and CEO earlier this year.

In between, his career took him to Molson Coors in Colorado, where he helped lead a team during a major beverage industry merger, and to Amazon, where he served in management roles during company growth spurts.

“Along the way I gained different perspectives on business from really smart folks and had great mentors,” he said. “I was fortunate and blessed to have the opportunity to work through these growth periods, but my heart has always been here since I left.”

His wife, Abby, is a South Dakota native and USD graduate, and they were eager to raise their three kids here.

“I’m forever grateful for what USD has done for my wife and myself,” Shepard said. “When they reached out to see if I wanted to come back, I said there really wasn’t anything to negotiate because I wanted to be here.”

Shepard will be one of four panelists sharing perspectives on the topic “Microcultures Matter: Tailoring work environments for employee success” at the seventh annual WIN in Workforce Summit, presented by the Sioux Falls Development Foundation. The popular event will be from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Sept. 24 at the Sioux Falls Convention Center. Click here to learn more and register.

Other panelists include:

• Brooke Fitts, First International Bank & Trust
• Karla Santi, Blend Interactive
• Natasha Smith, Sanford Health

The discussion will explore how strategic development of micro cultures can revolutionize talent attraction, development and retention.

“Culture gets thrown around a lot and means different things in different organizations,” Shepard said. “I’ve experienced companies that did a really good job of defining that and instilling pieces of it in their core values.”

While at one point he was a young leader managing people twice his age, “I think if you instill those principles, those core values, you can really start to make some headway,” he said. “But understanding your audience and how it needs to be delivered in an appropriate fashion to sink in is something you have to be in tune with.”

Successful companies also give leaders creative freedom to build micro-cultures, he said.

Shepard with his team at the USD Foundation.

“As a former athlete, everything for me revolves around winning and how we define if we’re winning,” he said. “You don’t have to win every day, but you have to understand where you’re at in the current state and how we continually grow. If you instill a culture and mindset that focuses on continually getting 1 percent better, you can look back and be extremely proud of what you accomplished.”

He now leads a team of about three dozen people and is putting that philosophy into practice.

“We’re reinvigorating with a new and fresh approach and doing it in a way in which everyone in the organization knows what it takes to win at their levels and how their role plays into the greater good,” he said.

Note: Sessions at the WIN in Workforce Summit are eligible for nine SHRM and HRCI recertification credits. The Sioux Falls Development Foundation is recognized by SHRM to offer professional development credits for SHRM-CP® or SHRM-SCP® recertification activities.

If you have questions, email deniseg@siouxfalls.com. Click here to learn more and register.

Here’s a look at the full agenda.