CFO Intelligence Magazine – Spring 2023
Dan Crumb
Kansas City, CHiefs CFO
When the Kansas City Chiefs pulled off a come-from-behind 38-35 win to clinch Super Bowl LVII, the loudest cheers, high-fives, and backslaps among the sellout crowd of 67,827 were directed at the club’s players. But a select few were also bumping fists with some below-the-radar heroes who also helped clinch the win: EVP, CFO Dan Crumb, and the rest of the Chiefs’ Finance Department. Behind the scenes, they address multiple moving parts — including accounts receivables, supplies, travel, logistics, lodging, and other payments — minimizing distractions for the club’s players so they can remain focused on winning.
“Along with thousands of others, we were fortunate to be in Arizona’s State Farm Stadium to cheer on the team,” Crumb recalls, noting that all of the Chiefs staff members were flown out for the Super Bowl. “Before, during, and after each season, the players and the business side pitch into the best of our ability. We have a very good system in place to handle all of the demands of running a successful team and we’re always looking for ways to improve it even more.”
HIDDEN ASSETS
This mission-critical infrastructure may not be easily visible to fans, but it supports the players’ ability to deliver their best performance. The Chiefs’ IT department, for example, reports to Crumb, and “a week before the Super Bowl we flew out to Arizona State University to set up a digital network, so when the players arrived, everything was ready to go.”