4 Options to replace Ted Phillips as the Chicago Bears President/CEO

The Chicago Bears could look to promote Karen Murphy to replace Ted Phillips

Another option that the Chicago Bears could consider is promoting Karen Murphy. Similar to Cliff Stein, this would not be a football operations move. However, Murphy is viewed as a rising star in the business community. She was ranked in Crain’s Chicago Business’ 40 under 40 back in 2006. She was also featured in an NFL interview titled “Next Woman Up.” Currently, she is the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the Chicago Bears.

An interesting part of her career is that she worked for Disney prior to coming to the Chicago Bears. In her interview, she spoke about how she pressured her boss at Disney to allow her to work on the Anaheim Angels account. Once she got the account, as a sports fan, she knew this is what she wanted to do. It didn’t take long for her to land the Chicago Bears job.

The most telling part of this interview was Murphy saying she wants to be a team president:

"I want to be a team president. I am grateful to the ownership of the Bears and my boss, because they continue to give me more responsibilities, and they have a lot of trust in me and allow me to take risks. They’ve allowed me to take a critical role on big projects and launch new departments. I’m a lifelong learner, and I’m never going to sit still, so the status quo is not good enough for me. I’m always creating new challenges, and being a team president, to me, would be the next big challenge."

Could Karen Murphy be the next replacement for Ted Phillips? She clearly has an inside track and with the state of the NFL looking to be more female-friendly, this could go a long way from a PR perspective. Not to mention, and more importantly, she has clearly made an impression and has earned it.