Executive: Kimberly Corbett
Company: Underdog Fantasy
Industry: Sports gaming and fantasy sports
Company Snapshot: A sports gaming platform that blends fantasy play, pick’em games, sports betting, and original sports media.
Format: CMO Journeys Interview
Why It Matters
Kimberly Corbett didn’t take the typical “marketing major to CMO” route. She began in accounting and auditing, then built a marketing career by teaching herself digital skills in the real world. She says sports fans carry fandom as part of their identity—which raises the bar for how brands show up. For agencies, her viewpoint is useful because she’s clear about what earns attention: real understanding of the business, proof you can deliver, and zero fluff.
Their Path, in Short
Corbett traces her work ethic back to an extremely rural farming and ranching community in Eastern Oregon. She worked from a young age, and it gave her confidence that she could “out hustle almost anybody” and figure things out.
She started her career in accounting and auditing. It was a solid path—but she didn’t love it. And she’s candid that when you don’t love something, it’s hard to be great at it. So she quit and became a nanny. While the kids were at school, she volunteered at a nonprofit, discovered a Google grant budget for search ads, and taught herself search engine marketing and SEO. That became her bridge into digital marketing.
Through each transition, she kept a quantitative edge. She says she’s always loved finance and economics, and that understanding how marketing investments flow through to a P&L has been a competitive advantage—something she believes has made her more successful in her roles.
From there, she moved into mobile games and major franchises, including work tied to Marvel, Game of Thrones, and Mortal Kombat. Those experiences sharpened her view of community: when people care, they become advocates—but they also bring high expectations. She says teams sometimes learn the hard way that not engaging with a customer base is the wrong move.
Now she’s in sports gaming. The business model may be familiar—software, an app, transactions—but the fan base is different. Sports, she says, is “always on,” and sports fans are deeply tied to what they love. For her, that makes the job both more intense and more meaningful: you’re not just selling a product. You’re trying to earn a place inside something people already care about.
Big Themes From the Conversation
Hustle shows up as a core belief. Corbett talks about hard work as the baseline—the thing that lets you walk into a new domain and learn fast.
She’s also vocal about permission to pivot. There’s no shame in trying something and deciding it isn’t for you. The real mistake, in her view, is staying stuck and letting that become your identity.
Community is another through line. Working on well-known franchises taught her that engagement isn’t optional. She says not engaging can be “really detrimental,” especially when the audience feels ownership.
Then there’s the bar she sets. She tells a formative story: when she wanted a promotion, her boss asked what she had done that no one in the industry had done. “Never been done” became a standard she carried into her teams—an expectation that people can do bigger things than they think they can.
Her leadership style follows from that. She isn’t a micromanager, expects flawless execution, and asks new team members where they want to be in the future—because sometimes someone’s in the wrong seat on the bus, and the job is to help them move toward the right one.
Watch CMO Journeys Interview
How They Choose the Right Agency Partners
When I asked Corbett what great agency partners get right, she went straight to leverage.
The best partners, she says, offer something that would be a high-capital investment for her to build internally—technology, specialized expertise, or a capability that’s hard to recreate. The price has to be good enough that she won’t even consider doing it herself. And the partner has to bring real domain expertise, not a generic pitch dressed up in trendy language.
Her make-or-buy framework is practical. First: capital position and cost structure—how much fixed cost versus variable cost does the business want? Second: time—do you need results now, or can you afford a longer build? Third: what must remain proprietary? She’s wary of building something bespoke with a vendor only to see it turned around and handed to a competitor in a way that changes the game.
That same clarity shows up in how she evaluates agencies and vendors who want her attention. She says she’s “not on the overly fluffy side of CMOs.” She doesn’t want someone who can’t explain how even great brand work impacts business results. She wants case studies and proof. She wants someone who has looked at her business and can say, plainly: here’s what you’re doing, here’s what we notice, and here’s how we can do something better.
Cold outreach can work—but it has to earn the click. She describes the kind that gets through as simple and specific: a known problem, clearly stated, with a clear cost. She points to AI-focused vendors as an example—teams that understand the cost structure of creative services, explain what they solved, and put the trade-off on the table without making her dig for it. No grand speeches. Just a novel solution and the math.
She also follows great work in the world. If she sees a strong campaign, she wants to know who did it. That’s credibility she can evaluate quickly, because it doesn’t rely on promises—it relies on evidence.
And the way she discovers ideas may surprise agencies who believe the path runs through trade press and awards. Corbett says her media consumption mirrors the target demographic she’s marketing to. She’s more interested in native content consumption than in what someone wants her to think the trend is. She follows creators in the space, pays attention to what her husband consumes, and relies on her own competitor intelligence—monitoring where money is being spent and how that changes.
One more thing she wants agencies to understand: cost pressure is real. She’s skeptical of partners who add cost without a clear advantage, and she says that doesn’t land well with her. Agencies that can help teams move faster, reduce cost structure, or bring a capability that’s truly hard to build internally are the ones that sound like a “yes.” Everyone else sounds like extra weight.
What Stood Out
Corbett lights up when she talks about high-expectation environments. She describes “talent density” as energizing—teams that demand your best every day, and make you better because of it.
But what’s most revealing is her combination of warmth and sharp standards. She talks about honoring sports fans because fandom has meaning in their lives—and then flips to “adults only” leadership without apology. It’s an honest combination. And it helps explain the kind of agency partner she respects: serious craft, clear proof, and no fluff between the idea and the outcome.
Inside Scoop
This article focuses on the journey, the leadership philosophy, and how this CMO works with agency partners.
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