Jess Kerr Staff

Jess Kerr is the Executive Associate Athletic Director for Risk Management, Policy, and Strategic Projects and serves as the primary manager of Athletics Department risk management efforts.

Prior to joining the Irish in 2022, Kerr spent five years at the NCAA’s national office in Indianapolis, where she managed all concussion litigation matters and served as the primary legal consultant and risk advisor to the NCAA’s Strategic Vision and Planning Committee, Legislative Committee, Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sport, Committee on Academics, Sports Science Institute, and numerous other internal departments and membership working groups. While at the NCAA, Kerr spearheaded the buildout of electronic discovery, a preferred national/local counsel infrastructure, and other operational aspects of litigation management. She also led the legal analysis and risk management efforts pertaining to various critical membership issues including, among others, concussion management, COVID-19 protocols, data privacy, DEI, eligibility requirements and waivers, independent medical care, injury prevention and reporting, mental health, research, sexual violence, transfers, and transgender participation.

Kerr’s passion for college athletics began as an undergraduate at the University of Notre Dame, where she received her degree in business administration and garnered All-America, Academic All-America, and Notre Dame NCAA Woman of the Year honors, as a volleyball student-athlete.

Kerr went on to parlay her playing and professional skills into a successful six-year stint as an assistant varsity volleyball coach, first in the Big Ten at Indiana University and then back with the Fighting Irish, while simultaneously earning her law degree.

After coaching and before her return to the college athletics space in 2017, Kerr spent almost twenty years as a corporate and regulatory lawyer representing clients in the healthcare industry, first as part of a large international law firm and later in-house with Fortune 500 medical giants Boston Scientific and Medtronic. As firm associate, business unit general counsel, in-house legal regulatory expert and trusted strategic business partner, Kerr managed legal defense strategies related to multi-jurisdiction Department of Justice investigations and private litigation matters and advised on a host of day-to-day legal and regulatory issues including those related to conflicts of interest, corporate communications & governance, crisis and enterprise risk management, environmental health & safety, ethics complaints, FDA approvals and labeling, fraud and abuse, global import & export, government affairs, grants & donations, intellectual property, mergers & acquisitions, privacy regulations, private equity, research integrity, and securities.

Kerr is a native of Maple Grove, Minnesota and is the proud parent of two children, son Jaedon and daughter Jenavieve.