From Multi-Cultural Roots To Multi-Faceted Role 

Kraken senior manager Pili Langman feels her Central American upbringing guided her towards her multi-faceted role of cultivating global partnerships not only for the team, but also for the Oak View Group and Climate Pledge Arena as well.

Langman left her native Panama at age 18 and moved to Tallahassee, Fla., in 2014 to complete an undergraduate communications degree at Florida State University she’d started taking courses for in her homeland. She remained there for a Master of Science degree in sports and fitness administration/management before heading to the Northwest for an MBA at Seattle University.

“I think growing up in Panama just gave me a true multicultural experience,” said Langman, 30, the daughter of Panamanian-born parents, but whose father, Peter, has family from both the U.K. and Spain, while her late mother, Gisel, also has some Chinese heritage. “We call our country a melting pot and I think that’s exactly what it is. It’s a melting pot of cultures, of people who come from different backgrounds altogether. Whether that’s socioeconomic backgrounds or cultural backgrounds of any sort. And it allowed me to learn about all of those different people as I went.”

And that’s allowed Langman to engage in career moves beyond her comfort zone; adapting on-the-fly to roles testing her ability to work both independently and collaboratively.

Langman spent her first six years out of college working as a project coordinator and then director at West2East Empire, a brand management and production company run by former Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson. She even followed Wilson to Denver and did similar work for him there when the quarterback signed with the Broncos.

“Russell is an extremely empowering individual, and we had a small, nimble team there where I learned a lot,” Langman said. “All of us who supported him and his family off the field, it was always quick transitions. We always had to support him and make things happen.”

It helped that Langman already spoke fluent English. It was mandatory every year in the K-12 school she attended in Panama, a country Langman considers “pretty westernized” to begin with.

“I had an opportunity growing up to visit the U.S. a lot,” she said. “So when I moved here, I kind of already knew a little bit about American culture and how to at least exist in the U.S.”

When Wilson moved on from the Broncos to the Pittsburgh Steelers, Langman decided to head back to her prior Seattle college stopover -- taking on her global partnerships role for both the Kraken and closely-affiliated OVG group managing the team’s arena.

Whereas her work for Wilson’s company of about 20 people was often independently focused, the much larger Kraken and OVG entities bring a broader element of teamwork to the forefront.

“It’s a lot of outreach, a lot of intentional research to learn about companies typically within our region but also nationally,” Langman said. “We learn about what organizations are doing from a marketing perspective and whether they align with our brand from a value standpoint and an initiative standpoint. We then have a lot of outreach to explore the possibility of a collaboration or partnership.

“A lot of our partners are organizations who haven’t done a sports partnership or sponsorship before,” she added. “But they’ve found great value in what our platform can provide. And we pride ourselves on the ability to build intentional partnerships and opportunities for brands to use our platform as a resource for theirs.”

Langman said the Kraken maintain a stable of global partners roughly half the size of the 100 or so aligned with the average NHL team. By keeping that number smaller, she added, the Kraken gives “a larger share of voice” to those partners.

When not visiting Panama to see her father, Langman tries to keep some of her homeland in her daily Seattle life.

“I very much enjoyed my childhood in Panama and being able to grow up with all of these traditions that Hispanic culture brings to the table,” she said. “Every (Latin American) country will have its own way of representing Hispanic culture.

“Spanish is my first language, and I speak Spanish pretty much every day. Hispanic culture is also in the food that I eat and I crave, or in the music that I listen to. I listen to a lot of Hispanic music. It’s just in the smaller, day-to-day things that I do just to feel like I’m at home sometimes. Although I will say Seattle has become home.”