Trust and Authenticity Have Fueled Jennifer Bullano Ridgley’s Rise from Intern to Chief Communications Officer with Her Hometown Penguins

Jennifer Bullano Ridgley grew up a Penguins fan in New Castle, Pennsylvania, about an hour outside of Pittsburgh.

She became a graduate intern with her hometown team in 2005, and has steadily risen through the ranks of the organization in the years since – getting named Chief Communications Officer in her 18^th season with the Penguins.

More than just a promotion, this position is an entirely new role that empowers Bullano Ridgley to ensure seamless coordination among hockey and business operations, provide ongoing strategic advice to the leadership team, and oversee all club external communications.

Working closely with President of Business Operations Kevin Acklin, President of Hockey Operations and General Manager Kyle Dubas, and Fenway Sports Group ownership, Bullano Ridgley will be uniquely positioned to help all departments coordinate better to ensure the team’s continued success on and off the ice.

“She’s someone who has been here for a long time and has seen the ups and downs of the organization, and along the way, has just built trust with everybody,” Acklin said. “She knows how the business runs, she knows how the hockey side runs, she understands the languages of all the Penguins stakeholders and she's a decoder ring for that.

“So, I think this is a homegrown talent that could work in any other organization in sports, and the fact she's doing it for her hometown team makes it that much more special.”

What also makes it that much more special is that not only has Bullano Ridgley ascended to a C-level executive position, she has done so in a male-dominated environment, serving as an incredible example and inspiration for girls and women who love the sport just like she does.

Bullano Ridgley has been a hockey fan since she was young, and was around middle school age when Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr led the Penguins to their first two Stanley Cup championships in the early 1990s, which left a big impression on her.

“I wanted that photo of Mario and Jagr posing back-to-back on my wall when I was little,” she said. “I loved their dynamic.”

While earning her B.A. in public relations from Penn State University, Bullano Ridgley stayed loyal to the Penguins while being surrounded by a lot of Flyers fans coming to the centrally located school from the other side of the state.

She continued supporting the Penguins from Florida after moving to Orlando following graduation in 2003 to work in Guest Relations and as a VIP Tours Hostess for The Walt Disney Company at Disney World. Disney asked those employees to list their interests in numerical order, because the company wanted guests to be accompanied by knowledgeable people who understood how to best guide them, and Bullano Ridgley had sports – particularly hockey – at the top of her list.

“I was the only person where hockey was my preference, basically,” she said. “So, I started getting a lot of hockey players, then one of them just made a comment to me saying, ‘why don't you work for a team?’”

That was a lightbulb moment of sorts for Bullano Ridgley, who moved back home to start working towards that goal of working in hockey. She took the LSAT thinking she might want to be an agent, but ended up enrolling in Point Park University’s MBA program for the first year of the Sports, Arts and Entertainment Management concentration.

The importance of making contacts in the business was emphasized early on, so Bullano Ridgley invited Tom McMillan, the longtime Penguins Vice President of Communications who retired in 2021, to lunch. They went to a Panera Bread and had a great, candid conversation, which included honest advice from McMillan.

“I remember him saying getting jobs in sports is hard, and he was like, ‘I hate to say it, but it's more difficult for females, and in hockey, it's even more difficult. There's just not a lot of women in hockey,’” Bullano Ridgley said. “I remember it didn't even sink in to me that he said that. I never thought I was at a disadvantage because I’m a woman. I just thought, 'This is what I want to do.’”

So, Bullano Ridgley applied for a graduate internship, which was a step back of sorts after having already worked full-time at Disney, but knew it was necessary to get her foot in the door. After an exhausting period of balancing her coursework with the excitement and chaos of being an intern during Sidney Crosby’s rookie season, soon, she was breaking glass ceilings.

Bullano Ridgley got invited back in the 2006-07 campaign to be part of the Communications department game-night staff, and early in the season, there was an opening for the Manager of Media Relations position. She ended up getting hired, and Bullano Ridgley will forever be grateful to McMillan – who’s been her mentor ever since – for the opportunity. But as McMillan put it, “she was a star from the start,” and knew Bullano Ridgley would shine.

She spent two years in that role before being promoted to Director of Communications in 2008. After the Penguins won the Stanley Cup in 2009, when Bullano Ridgley received her championship ring, one of the players remarked on how cool that must be for a Pittsburgh native.

“He asked if I ever thought about wanting to be a part of a Stanley Cup championship, because as players, they grow up wanting to win the Stanley Cup, right? And I was like, no!” she said. “I loved watching the Penguins win the Stanley Cup, but I never in my wildest dreams could have ever imagined that I would ever be part of winning a Stanley Cup, let alone three.”

And after Pittsburgh went back-to-back in 2016 and ’17, Bullano Ridgley had to pinch herself as she was coordinating the recreation of the famous photo with Lemieux and Jagr that she loved as a kid, this time between Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. “It was like a full-circle moment,” said Bullano Ridgley, who became the first female to hold the position of Vice President in Penguins history in 2019 before being named Senior Vice President of Communications in 2022.

Bullano Ridgley has built incredible relationships with the Big Three, rounded out by Kris Letang, over the years, as they’ve essentially come up together. But part of what makes Bullano Ridgley so special is her unique ability to quickly connect with the different ownership, players, coaches, management, and media outlets that she’s dealt with across nearly two decades. For Penguins Head Coach Mike Sullivan, that comes from a combination of her intellect and the person that she is.

Bullano Ridgley is hilarious and big-hearted, quick to laugh and crack a joke, learning back at Disney to never treat high-profile individuals any differently. She uses the right blend of humor, small talk and professionalism to make people feel comfortable, and ultimately, just handles herself extremely well.

She’s smart and tough, honest and loyal, and manages everything she’s tasked with – particularly difficult and sensitive situations – assertively and confidently, as Bullano Ridgley always knows the right thing to say and do.

She also wants the best for her team and goes to bat for them, personally mentoring dozens of professionals who now serve in media roles with several NHL clubs. Bullano Ridgley possesses that sort of superhuman capability to manage her myriad professional duties with being a wife, mother to daughter Harper, and a rock for her family and friends.

“She's a great person, first and foremost, and she's as authentic a person as you'll ever meet,” Sullivan said. “I think that comes through loud and clear to everybody in our hockey operations, our players in particular.”

It certainly did to Fenway Sports Group, who realized right away that Bullano Ridgley had tremendous value, seeing that she was a trusted advisor within the organization, and quickly began to lean heavily on her expertise. Not only did she serve as the architect for the communications strategy during the transition, but they later asked her to play a crucial part in bringing Kyle Dubas to Pittsburgh, with Bullano Ridgley helping him and his family feel comfortable enough to make the move.

“To me, the thing that's impressed me most about Jen is just her consistent energy every single day,” Dubas said. “The way that she goes about her business every single day, both professionally but also the spirit that she brings to the whole organization. Right from Day 1, even before coming in here, it was very frankly the amount of respect that people inside and outside the organization have for Jen that she's built up over all of her time with the Penguins.”

Trust is earned in drips and lost in buckets, and Bullano Ridgley understands the importance of it, which is something she’s taken through every step of her career. She’s found the right balance of being transparent with being a confidant, which can be tricky, but Bullano Ridgley nails it.

Now, Bullano Ridgley is looking forward to combining the perspective that her longevity has provided with vision and ingenuity to help the organization continue to grow and evolve.

“We've done a lot of great things that we are proud of, but you can’t become complacent, because everything's changing all the time,” she said. “This opportunity just gives me even more space to think of ideas and work with different departments in the organization, because I think that communications is just such a touchpoint for every facet of the business. And now more than ever, that's become true.

“So, to be able to collaborate across the board with hockey operations, partnership, marketing, ticketing, and work with Kevin directly – I think that we have a lot of creative people, a lot of new people, a lot of tenured people, and it's a great group that can really make an impact.”