Katie Hill knows a thing or two about the power of communication.
Having worked in the White House, and then for former President Barack Obama, the communications executive saw first-hand the capacity of public entities to have an impact on people’s lives.
When an opportunity to work in the NFL — the most powerful cultural institution in America — came around, Hill had no hesitation.
“The NFL has an unmatched influence on how people think,” Hill recently told Outsports. “It makes my job fun. No two days are the same.”
For her influential role in the most powerful of American sports, Katie Hill, Senior Vice President of Communications at the National Football League, is No. 10 on the 2025 Outsports Power 100.
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Hill says everyone deserves to be heard
Katie Hill’s career since graduating from the University of Virginia has revolved around elevating important and powerful voices.
Yet she also takes her role seriously having opportunities to lift up quieter voices that may otherwise go unheard. She takes that role particularly seriously doing her job on Park Avenue.
At an internal meeting, she’ll make sure everyone feels they not only have an opportunity to speak, but that they know they will be heard.
“When I think of my role in the league office and as a woman in sports, it’s making sure people feel seen,” she said.
To be sure, tomes have been written about the struggle many women face to be heard in some of corporate America. Add in the setting of men’s professional sports, and that can be even more challenging.
Yet Hill said it’s not just women who can struggle. In the meetings she conducts, she has many times noticed some men seemingly shy away from the conversation.
Silence can come from any corner of the room.
“My job as a leader is to be in a room and watch the room carefully, who’s speaking who’s not speaking. Can I bring people from silence to conversation? I see it as my job to stick up for everybody who feels voiceless regardless of who they are.”
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Elevating the LGBTQ community at the NFL
As part of the LGBTQ community, the efforts the league has made both internally and publicly to build LGBTQ inclusion also mean a lot to her. For over two decades, the league and its teams have made outreach to gay, lesbian, bi and trans people a growing part of the league’s ethos.
“Football is for everyone. Regardless of your gender or who you voted for in the last election, we can sit and watch our games together.”
One extension of the league’s LGBTQ efforts is NFL Pride, the internal employee resource group founded in 2017 that also helps build opportunities for the league to showcase its efforts to the country.
“The Pride group here is such a passionate, dedicated group of allies and queer employees,” Hill said. “They’re all volunteers building a real community and a camaraderie in the league office to elevate visibility around the importance of inclusion.”
Hill is also proud of the external efforts the league is doing to also give voices to people and help them be heard. One campaign is the current My Cause My Cleats, a long-running program that allows players to express support for a charity and cause they choose.
“We have the ability to lift up causes important to the players, to tell the stories of what our teams and players are doing in their communities.”
And yes, the longtime NFL fan “geeks out” from time to time at the basic football experiences she’s gotten to live — and being behind-the-scenes and smack-dab in the middle of them.
Hill called her first Super Bowl — a few years ago at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles — a “dream come true.”
Yet she was particularly moved by her first Combine and Draft, two major stepping stones to college football players achieving their dream of playing in the NFL.
Much like her daily work to elevate voices, it’s these two powerful events that do the same for hundreds of young men every year.
“I still get chills now. You get to see the arc of players’ dreams, from hard work to hope to success.
“It’s a reminder of why we do what we do.”
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