Steve Birdwell joined Desert Champions LLC in 2010 as its CFO. Desert Champions manages and operates a curated selection of sports and entertainment events and properties, the largest of which is the BNP Paribas Open, held annually at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.
He joined the executive team that was directly responsible for growing Desert Champions LLC from a small business to a modern sports and entertainment event management firm. Desert Champions has experienced year-over-year growth for nearly a decade. He has led teams that have added business processes, best practice improvements and implanted new business systems including, ERP, CRM, Ticketing, Data Warehouse, and Data analytics and Reporting.
He added the Chief Operating Officer role in late 2015. He oversees operations teams for Hospitality, Marketing, Merchandising, Operations, Sales, Finance and Media. In 2015 He joined ATP Media as a shareholder representative for Desert Champions LLC, and in 2018 as a finance committee member.