When Mark Cuban hired Cynthia “Cynt” Marshall in March 2018 as the first Black female CEO in NBA history, the franchise was reeling from allegations of two decades of sexual harassment and workplace misconduct within its business operations.
Now, Marshall is retiring after leading the organization through more than six years of momentous change. She is credited with transforming the organization’s culture into one of inclusion after an independent seven-month investigation confirmed “numerous instances” of sexual harassment and other improper conduct, resulting in multiple Mavericks employee dismissals.
“I’m honored to have been asked by Mark to join him in addressing some very serious issues,” Marshall said upon her hiring on Feb. 26, 2018, initially as interim CEO.
“I’m saddened, and I’ll say that again: I’m very saddened that issues of domestic violence and sexual harassment are so prominent in our society and allegations have surfaced once again in our organization.”
What resulted, many longtime employees told The Dallas Morning News on the one-year anniversary of Marshall’s arrival, was a culture of inclusion and diversity and a zero-tolerance policy regarding improper conduct.
Getting out the ‘tumors’
“Dream. Focus. Pray. Act,” Marshall said after she was hired, citing one of her favorite reminders of how to handle life. “And we’ll get through this together.”
She was brought in after shocking reports of sexual harassment surfaced within the organization, revealing what some women described as a corrosive “locker room culture” in the Mavericks’ front office.
“This is like when I had colon cancer,” she said. “I had to get the tumor out before we could start to heal. Before I even had chemotherapy. And that’s what we’re going to do. We’ll get tumors out.”
Ticking off each element of The Marshall Plan, she noted that it fit on only one page. And like the woman herself, it was very no-nonsense.
“Soup to nuts we’re going to make sure that this is a great place to work,” said Marshall.
Mavs dancers
One of the first changes Marshall made was to order less-scanty uniforms and less-provocative routines for the Dallas Mavericks Dancers.
“We want the focus to be on the dancers as artists and to highlight their skills, not be eye candy or sexualized,” Marshall, the first black cheerleader at the University of California, Berkeley, said in announcing her directive.
Marshall said the Mavs dancers’ new look was part of her 100-day plan aimed at cleaning up problems.
“We love our dancers, but we are re-evaluating every aspect of this organization to make sure they are living up to the values we are instilling in the entire Mavericks operation,” she said.
In 2020, Marshall started the “Mavs Hoop Troop,” a co-ed entertainment squad.
Hiring practices
When Marshall arrived, none of the Mavericks’ business-side executives were women or people of color. Within a year, half of the executives were women and 43% were people of color.
Before Marshall, 74% of the franchise’s business-side employees were white and 68% were men. Within that first year, 40% were people of color; and 43% were women.
In 2020 and 2022, the Mavericks received the NBA’s Inclusion Leadership Award for creating and executing programing that promotes inclusion and inclusive practices.
“Cynt came into this organization as a force of nature, bringing in resources, giving employees a voice, a set of values, education and development,” Erin Finegold White, the Mavs’ vice president of corporate communications and events, said in 2018. “What is truly mind-blowing is how quickly she made the transformation.”
Efforts to lift up women
In 2020 the franchise created the GEM program — Girls Empowered by Mavericks — to inspire girls and young women by using physical activity as a cornerstone for development and success.
In 2023, the Dallas Wings joined the program’s efforts and the Mavericks became the first NBA team to become a WNBA franchise’s jersey sponsor, with a GEM logo.
“It was all Cynt,” Cuban wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “She took the lead and put it together.”
Social justice
Under Marshall, the Mavericks broadened and strengthened their ties to North Texas communities through philanthropic initiatives, outreach and activism, perhaps most visibly by advocating social justice in the aftermath of George Floyd’s May of 2020 death in Minneapolis.
Last month, Marshall and Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont presented a pair of $50,000 checks, one from the Mavericks, the other from Sands Corp., to Taylor Toynes, co-founder and CEO of nonprofit For Oak Cliff, which is celebrating its 10th year of serving South Oak Cliff families through education, advocacy and community building.
Marshall has long been a supporter of the organization, which surprised her last year with a birthday party and a mural to recognize her efforts as part of her HeavenCynt charity initiative.
Find more Mavericks coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.
