Kim Miner has spent her life in and around teams—in particular, sports teams. She was a standout softball player in high school, going on to play on Tufts University’s collegiate team. After graduation, she worked numerous jobs for the Boston Red Sox—everything from fan ambassador to the CEO’s research assistant. After graduating from Harvard Law School, she became one of the first general counsel in minor league baseball, joining the Pawtucket Red Sox (PawSox), who would later become the Worcester Red Sox (WooSox). Then, in fall 2023, she became the inaugural general counsel and chief of staff for Boston Unity Soccer Partners, the group bringing a National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) team to Boston in 2026. Being part of a team is core to who Miner is—as a professional and as a person. Her time as an athlete and teammate, she says, has been instrumental in how she thinks about building legal and leadership teams, first in softball, then baseball, and now soccer.
Building a team for herself
Growing up, Miner played for her school in Concord, Massachusetts, but it was really by playing for travel teams across Eastern Massachusetts that she learned the importance of teamwork and playing well with others, particularly those who came from outside her home turf. “You’ve got the teammate who rolls out of bed right before the game. And you’ve got someone like me who’s probably there early, probably overpracticing. You see a range of different approaches, and you realize that they all can work,” she says. She perfected her craft teaching little kids how to pitch. “That actually makes you better yourself,” she told a Worcester Oral History Project. “Because you have to understand something really well in order to teach someone else.” Trying to understand young players’ mindsets, as they’re beginning to feel out their strengths and weaknesses, was an important leadership skill she could take with her.
I noticed that people listened to the lawyers on staff, and it was a way to have your voice matter.
Kim Miner, GC, Boston Unity Partners
After playing softball throughout high school, Miner attended Tufts University, where she pitched for the women’s softball team. Athletics helped channel her “competitive side” as well as taught her how to approach challenges both individually and as part of a team. Learning how to bounce back or regroup after losing a game would later translate into managing her own and her staff’s expectations and anxieties as they made it “95 percent of the way there in a deal”—for instance, securing a home venue for the PawSox—only for it to fall apart.
Sports and law would eventually come together. Miner, who realized she wanted to be one of the people “behind the scenes,” saw one meaningful way to be part of the team—as a lawyer. “I noticed that people listened to the lawyers on staff, and it was a way to have your voice matter,” she says. At the time, she knew she might only be able to support men’s sports as there were fewer professional women’s sports leagues. But, she saw that “there were more women in legal roles than in other leadership positions and that they had influence,” she says. “I was really attracted to the idea that I wouldn’t have to justify my presence in the room.” Instead, she says, colleagues would respect her “technical expertise” and listen.
Miner attended Harvard Law School while also working for the Red Sox in various roles, as a legal assistant and in business development. After law school, she did what many graduates do: she started at a big law firm, spending nearly a year at WilmerHale’s Boston office. But corporate law didn’t stick, in part, she says, because she realized she did not want to “spend all her time with lawyers”—people like her. Playing on a softball team had always offered her something different and something she craved. “I played softball with some people who were very much like me and a lot of people who weren’t at all like me,” she says. She returned to the Red Sox, eventually becoming an assistant to then-president and CEO Larry Lucchino. As Lucchino’s right hand, Miner was also learning how to put together and lead a team. “One of the things that I learned from Larry was the value of disagreement and how to have it productively,” she says. “He would have a fierce disagreement with you, but he was always curious to learn more and be better.”
If a group of people with a wealth of experiences is put together with care and well led, you can get really far.
Miner
When Miner started with the Pawtucket Red Sox in 2016, she was one of only a few women in the front office—and the only general counsel in minor league baseball, as far as she knows. (Lucchino himself was a lawyer, and she believes he valued her legal experience and skill set as they sought a new home venue for the team.) Without “direct peers” across the league and as one of the only women in the organization, Miner was faced with creating a department in a “family-owned business where there were still a lot of handshake deals.” She says, “Being mindful and realistic about what would work and what wouldn’t,” she would ask, “What serves my organization in this moment?” She also learned that she had to be intentional about building an inclusive team and to “seek out differences”—that “if a group of people with a wealth of experiences is put together with care and well led, you can get really far,” she says.
Building a team for the future and the community
After more than a decade in baseball, in late 2023 Miner was hired as the first GC and chief of staff for Boston’s new NWSL club. As Miner has built her team—legal, and given her chief of staff role, more broadly across the organization—she has remained cognizant of how her team reflects the community in which she works. Having grown up professionally in a male-dominated field, she values a diversity of perspectives and backgrounds. She says:
One of the reasons that I was interested in making a move from baseball to soccer—in addition to the fact that I wanted to work in women’s sports, and I’m so excited about the NWSL and about a team coming to Boston—was the idea that the NWSL fan profile is pretty different from that of the MLB fan profile. Both those profiles are changing, but I liked the idea of working in a sport and in a league that is inherently a bit more diverse and global.
As she hires and thinks about what the team’s needs are now against what they will be in the future, Miner says, “it would just be foolish to not have a staff all the way up to the leadership team that is reflective of the fans and the team’s community.” Inspired by Lucchino’s use of productive disagreement, Miner says she hopes to “build an organization where team leaders and staff appreciate differences of opinion.”
Composing the soccer team, the legal team, and the leadership team, Miner thinks about hiring for an evolving landscape. “In an ideal world, you hire people who are interested in participating in the ‘build’ phase of a new team and aren’t deterred by the fact that you really have to roll up your sleeves and create things that aren’t there right now, but also people who can operate the team at a high level to maintain what you’ve built and continually refine it.” Miner says she knows the business of sports is changing, and with it, her organization. “The task of running a legal department, a ticketing department, or any other aspect of the business right now is really different from what it’s going to look like running a steady business two years from now,” she admits.
Composing the soccer team, the legal team, and the leadership team, Miner thinks about hiring for an evolving landscape.
One of Miner’s first challenges with the NWSL team has been securing a home. At the PawSox, Miner was instrumental in securing the minor league team’s ballpark, moving from Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to Worcester, Massachusetts, and transitioning the team’s brand and identity. She knows she needs to “get the job done” while also managing the anxieties internally (the staff) and externally (the public). In that, she is mindful that building a team, in her role, is more than just building a soccer team or a legal team. It’s building a community.
In December 2024, the City of Boston announced the lease agreement with Boston Unity Soccer Partners for White Stadium in Franklin Park. “The project incorporates comprehensive feedback from neighborhood residents, BPS athletes and coaches, and the Franklin Park community—shared throughout more than 60 public meetings and small group community discussions and more than 900 public comment letters,” the Boston Mayor’s Office press release notes. Miner was a critical part of negotiating the deal, which includes investments in the stadium and the park and a partnership with Boston Public Schools. “One of the reasons I was drawn to work in sports is that the industry has an outsize platform and a microphone in our society,” Miner says. Working on finding a venue means involving local leadership—politicians, community organizers, and more. She takes community feedback seriously. “Each time that I’ve been through this effort, whether in Rhode Island, Worcester, or Boston, I’ve been struck by the attention paid to the project and the team, both from the community and also from local leadership,” she says. “I see that significant attention as a responsibility to be handled with a lot of care.”
Managing the project, Miner remains cognizant of the short- and long-term goals. “We need to operate a business,” she says, “but even better to do it in a way that invests in a long and meaningful community relationship.”
Cover image: EFKS / shutterstock
