Rob Simmelkjaer

Rob Simmelkjaer is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Persona, a multi-channel video platform launched in early 2019 that will produce and distribute interviews and conversations across a wide spectrum of topics, including law, media, journalism and politics.

From 2011 to 2019, Rob was the Senior Vice President of NBC Sports Ventures, the new business development and investment arm of the NBC Sports Group. In this role, he launched numerous new business, including NBC Sports’ radio and podcasting business, its esports business (the Universal Open) and its free-to-play games business (NBC Sports Predictor). Rob also initiated and oversaw the launch of NBC Sports’ youth sports technology business via the acquisition of software-as-a-service company SportNgin.

From 2002 to 2011 Rob served in variety of executive roles at ESPN and ABC, divisions of the Walt Disney Company. He joined ESPN in 2002 as the director of NBA programming. He went on to serve as Chief of Staff to ESPN president George Bodenheimer, vice president of international business development and lead Olympics negotiator.

​

Throughout Rob’s media career he has served in high profile on-air roles as well. He worked as a full-time journalist for ABC News from 2005 to 2006, and he would go on to appear as an anchor, reporter and contributor for ESPN, NBC Sports, MSNBC and CNBC. Most notably, Rob anchored MSNBC’c coverage of the 2012 (London) and 2016 (Rio) Summer Olympics and hosted the NBC Sports Gold Zone digital program from the 2018 Winter Olympics (PyeongChang).

Rob’s commitment to his local community has grown, as in 2017 Rob narrowly lost a bid for local political office in his adopted hometown of Westport, CT, where he now lives with his wife and two daughters. In 2019 he was elected to the Connecticut Democratic State Central Committee.