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Indiana Fever President Allison Barber will step down from her position at the conclusion of the season, Pacers Sports & Entertainment announced Wednesday.
Barber, who has led the WNBA franchise since 2019, plans to help lead the development of a new effort focused on empowering Indiana girls and women through sports called the Marvella Project. No additional details about the project were immediately available.
“Allison has been a tremendous leader for the Indiana Fever over the last six seasons,” Mel Raines, CEO of Pacers Sports & Entertainment, which operates the Indiana Fever and the NBA’s Indiana Pacers, said in a statement. “We are grateful for her dedication and look forward to watching the positive impact she will continue to have during her next chapter.”
Barber is just the second executive leader of the Fever in the team’s 25-year history and was directly involved with strategic planning for the franchise.
That included overseeing an effort to rebuild the franchise through extensive on-the-court and front office moves in the past several offseasons, most notably with back-to-back No. 1 WNBA Draft picks in Aaliyah Boston and Caitlin Clark in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
The Fever on Monday clinched a spot in the playoffs for the first time since 2016 and now have a 17-16 record. The team has seen massive attendance growth this season, with average home crowds jumping from just more than 4,000 to almost 17,000 per game.
Barber has worked with four coaches during her time at the Fever—Pokey Chatman, Marianne Stanley, Carlos Knox and current head coach Christie Sides. Chatman was fired at the end of the 2019 season, while Stanley was replaced partway through the 2022 season by Knox. Sides has led the Fever since the start of the 2023 season.
Barber has also worked with two general managers: Former Fever star Tamika Catchings, from 2019 to 2022, and former head coach Lin Dunn, since 2022.
Barber, a 2011 IBJ Woman of Influence, led WGU Indiana from its inception as a university in 2010 until 2018, when she briefly led the school’s fundraising affiliate WGU Advancement. She was hired by the Fever in March 2019. Prior to WGU, Barber was deputy assistant secretary of defense and special detail to the Office of Global Communications in the White House during part of the George W. Bush administration.
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