Amber Myczkowiak, 34

Senior Director of Premium and Membership Development

Detroit Pistons, Detroit

Employees: 88 • Revenue: $92M College: Trine University

Amber Myczkowkiak’s resume reads like the back of an NBA player’s trading card.

She spent eight years with the Indiana Pacers and a year and a half with the New Orleans Pelicans before joining the Detroit Pistons almost six years ago. “I’ve worked for all three ‘P’ NBA teams,” Myczkowiak says. “That’s my claim to fame.”

She started her front office career in sports as an intern in the sales and premium services department with the Pacers before moving to inside sales after she graduated from Trine University. While in Indiana, she met her husband, a field sales and marketing executive at General Motors Co. whose career path allowed her to tour around the NBA.

“I’ve been fortunate. As we’ve moved around the country with my husband’s job, I’ve been able to stay in sports and grow,” Myczkowiak says.

“When we moved to New Orleans, my management at the Pacers reached out to the Pelicans and a position was created for me with the (NFL) Saints and the Pelicans, since it’s the same ownership group,” she recalls. “A similar thing happened when we moved to Detroit. It was right at the time (when the team was) making the move from the Palace of Auburn Hills down to Little Caesars Arena, and there was a subset of suite holders that needed a service person.”

Since then, she’s become senior director of premium and membership development. In addition to directing the member and premium services platform, she also leads the premium sales department.

Myczkowiak says she appreciates her “extremely supportive” husband, who often has to take care of dinner and bedtime with the couple’s two young children while she’s at Pistons games and other events at Little Caesars Arena.

“I do feel an immense amount of pressure to make this work with a family, because women at some point leave the workforce to take care of the family,” she says.

“There aren’t a lot of women in leadership positions in the sports industry. Because of that, I do get calls about VP positions at other teams and it’s always a conversation at our house.”

Tim Keenan

Dan Ngoyi, 33

CEO, Rock Connections, Detroit Employees: 1,000

Revenue: NA College: Wayne State University

Dan Ngoyi may lead hundreds of peo ple, but when asked, he says he’s just a kid from the east side of Detroit con necting with people and solving problems.

“I just have a passion for diving toward the hard stuff and getting people to see that (ability) in themselves,” Ngoyi says. “I think every single favor ite memory of my career is rooted in people and watching people grow ”

The Wayne State University graduate began his career with Detroit-based Rocket Cos in 2013 as an associate recruiter with Quicken Loans (now Rocket Mortgage). Ten years and eight titles later, he’s now CEO of Rock Connections, which helps companies generate revenue by centralizing con tact center services.

Before rising to the top, Ngoyi was vice presi dent of talent acquisition at Rocket Central, a role he took on in 2020. “As an organization, we were growing tremendously,” he says “We moved from being in-office to working remotely My job was to redesign our entire (operational) system. ”

To make it all work, he created a common understanding of problems and goals, and shared them with team members. As a result, the enter prise helped Rocket Cos more than double its rev enue from 2019

“If you drive alignment, you can create an orga nization that moves faster and offers you the best chance for success, ” Ngoyi says “Even today, as CEO, I get to figure out how to strengthen our foundation, make us elite, and ensure that we ’ re communicating and creating great experiences for clients.”

That’ s the basis for his favorite company mantra : Ever y client Ever y time No exceptions No excuses.

“My goal is for every single time that somebody talks to somebody from Rocket, they’ re blown away, ” Ngoyi says. “I think that goes beyond just our external clients When I think about how we, as leaders, treat our team members and the conversa tions that we have, we have that same obligation. ”

He calls himself the guardian of the compa ny ’ s culture, creating an environment that moti vates and empowers people while still leaving room for fun.

“I’ m learning that a lot of people with titles take themselves too seriously,” Ngoyi says “One thing I’ ve told my team is it’s not about who’s right; it’s about what’s right When you have an environment where ideas are valued, you get the opportunity to create real change.”

Calli Newberry

Her journey took some unexpected turns, but there’s no doubt that Shelby Oberstaedt arrived exactly where she was meant to be.

Oberstaedt started out as a pre-veterinary student, eager to bring new knowledge back to her family’s horse breeding business. Two years into her studies, however, Oberstaedt’s family encouraged her to pursue a different career, as the economy began to decline and fewer people were breeding horses.

She pursued a teaching degree instead, and upon graduation from Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, she took on a substitute teaching job to close out the school year.

“After three months, I realized I made a really big mistake — I didn’t actually like it,” Oberstaedt says. “What I really liked was the hospitality industry. I liked working with people, I loved the relationships I had built, and I just really enjoyed working.”

Oberstaedt had taken on a second job at Grizzly Peak Brewing Company in Ann Arbor, and that move laid the foundation for the rest of her career. One night after work, she expressed interest in a longer career in the industry to her manager. Within a few days, she was interviewing with the president of Mission Restaurant Group.

“It was field day at school, and I had mud all over when I showed up for the interview,” she recalls.

Regardless, Oberstaedt was brought on to help open and manage her first restaurant in 2012. “I ended up opening Lena Habana in downtown Ann Arbor, and started managing there,” she says. “During the opening, I found I really loved the training side.”

Over the past 10 years, before becoming Mission’s vice president of operations, she has opened and managed new restaurants, created training programs, led teams of people through the COVID-19 pandemic, and even helped host former President Barack Obama at the Jolly Pumpkin in Midtown Detroit.

Oberstaedt says the individual design and menu offerings at each of the 17 Mission restaurants makes her job both exciting and rewarding. She calls the company’s culture a “perfect blend” of positive energy for employees and customers alike.

“I never would’ve thought, when I graduated with an education degree, that this is where I would be,” she says. “Looking back, I wasn’t meant to be that fifthgrade teacher at field day. I like where I’m at, and I love what I do.”

Calli Newberry