Managing Director - TrailRunner International

Amanda Bush

Amanda Bush is a Managing Director for TrailRunner International based in Austin, Texas. A seasoned attorney and litigator who also serves as Of Counsel to the Texas law firm Jackson Walker, Amanda has spent her career advising clients facing complex legal matters, including commercial litigation, intellectual property, media, and First Amendment.

A former litigation partner at Jackson Walker, Amanda is also a Managing Partner at Pine Cove Capital, a Texas-based strategic advisory firm. She serves on the Board of Directors for Hanwha Solutions, a multinational energy services, petrochemical, and real estate development company headquartered in Seoul, South Korea and on the Board of Directors for Backpack Group, a Miami data solutions provider serving the operators of large buildings.

Amanda was named the 2016 National Woman of the Year by The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for raising more than $490,000 in a 10-week fundraising campaign, a national record at the time. Amanda also has served on the Host Committee for the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play golf tournament, on the Advance Team of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and on The Chancellor’s Council for the University of Texas System. She also co-chaired the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy’s Dallas/Fort Worth’s Celebration of Reading from 2003-2014, an event that raised over $1 million annually.

Amanda has been named a “Rising Star” by Thomson Reuters (2007-2014) and a “Top Attorney” by Fort Worth, Texas magazine. In 2012, Amanda was named to the Fort Worth Business Press’s “40 Under 40” list. In addition to her legal, advisory, and charitable work, she has participated in Congressional-led business delegations to international markets including Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Amanda graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a Bachelor of Arts degree from The University of Texas, and she received her law degree from The University of Texas School of Law.

Amanda lives in Austin with her husband and their two sons.

Scott Sonju

Scott Sonju is a Managing Director based in Dallas/Fort Worth who advises the firm’s sports industry clients on a wide range of matters across corporate strategy, finance, operations, communications, and public/private partnerships. Prior to joining TrailRunner International, Scott was President of SNS Consulting and for five years was President of Neltex Sports, an investment and advisory consortium that advises, develops, and owns and/or operates sports-related businesses. During that time, Scott forged a historic partnership with the China Baseball Association, launched a professional rugby club, advised buyers and sellers of sports assets, and served as a senior advisor to Major League Cricket.

For more than a decade, Scott was President and Co-Owner of the Frisco RoughRiders affiliate of Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers, where he was named Texas Executive of the Year. During Scott’s tenure, the RoughRiders led its league in attendance and revenue and received myriad industry and community awards. Scott began his career with the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks organization.

Scott is active in the community and has served on multiple civic and charitable boards. He has been recognized twice by the Dallas Business Journal as one of the city’s “40 Under 40.”

Scott earned a Bachelor of Arts in history from Texas A&M University and his MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. He is an adjunct professor at Southern Methodist University, where he teaches a master’s-level sports sponsorship course. Scott loves to read, hike, travel, write, and teach. He and his wife Amy have four children and make their home in North Texas.

Serena Saitto

Serena Saitto is a Managing Director based in New York for TrailRunner International where she brings more than 20 years of experience in strategic communications and financial journalism to counsel clients in financial communications, crisis communications, and special situations such as M&A, IPOs, leveraged buyouts, and corporate activism.

Most recently, Serena was a Senior Vice President at Edelman Smithfield, where she advised public and private companies on financial communications and special situations. Before Edelman Smithfield, Serena worked for more than 15 years as an award-winning financial journalist, reporting from Europe, Latin America, and the U.S. for leading financial publications including Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal. She won a Sabew (Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing) award as part of a Bloomberg team for best in enterprise reporting on the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Her coverage for Bloomberg of the 2008 financial crisis received a “Best in Business Reporting” award from the Society of Silurians, one of the oldest press clubs in the country. At Bloomberg, she led coverage of M&A and IPOs in the Americas as a Senior Reporter. As a Senior Tech Reporter, she also covered venture capital and VC-backed startups. In these positions, she often contributed to Bloomberg Businessweek and Bloomberg TV. She also moderated Bloomberg conferences globally.

Before joining Bloomberg, Serena was a correspondent for Dow Jones Newswires in Buenos Aires and Milan contributing to The Wall Street Journal and CNBC. Her most recent journalism post was working as a reporter in San Francisco covering Silicon Valley for The Information.

Serena holds a Master of Science in political economy from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Bachelor of Science in political sciences from La Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.

A dual citizen of Italy and the U.S., Serena speaks English, Italian, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. She lives in Manhattan, and loves traveling and spending time outdoors, surfing, and skiing.

Jamie Zaninovich

Jamie Zaninovich, a Managing Director in the San Francisco Bay Area, draws on nearly 30 years of global sports industry leadership experience to advise clients on matters related to operations and governance, marketing, sponsorships, media rights, crisis management, sustainability and social responsibility, and international business development.

Prior to TrailRunner International, Jamie served as the Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer at the Pac-12 Conference. Before that, he was the Commissioner of the West Coast Conference and a senior athletic administrator at both Princeton University and Stanford University.

Jamie has negotiated and managed long-term media rights agreements with every major U.S. broadcast outlet and partnered with professional sports leagues, professional sports teams, and governmental agencies to organize and host large-scale sporting events including NCAA March Madness, the Rose Bowl, and the College Football Playoff. He also has led collegiate sports conference expansion and international business development in global markets and served on the NCAA Men’s Basketball Committee. A recognized leader in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in sports, he developed the Pac-12/Southwest Athletic Conference Legacy Series in partnership with the Equal Justice Initiative. He also designed and implemented the first collegiate conference sustainability program in the U.S. while at the Pac-12.

Jamie was named to Sports Business Journal’s “Forty Under 40” list. He regularly lectures on sports business at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and he sits on multiple boards, including the Green Sports Alliance, the San Jose Sports Authority, and the Positive Coaching Alliance National Advisory Board.

A native of Eugene, Oregon, Jamie is a graduate of Stanford and the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and resides in Millbrae, California with his wife Karen and their two sons, Max and Lucas.