San Diego Wave have gone straight to Leeds United's executive suite to find their next CEO. Morrie Eisenberg, who served as Leeds' chief business officer after joining in October 2023, will take over as Wave chief executive in August — leaving behind a club he helped steer back into the Premier League and keep there.
The hire tells you everything about where the Wave's ownership is headed. Lauren Leichtman — who paid a record $120 million for the franchise in 2024, up from the $2 million Ron Burkle spent less than three years earlier — isn't running a passion project. She's building an institution. Bringing in someone with Eisenberg's resume, which spans LinkedIn, Tesla, the San Francisco 49ers and a stadium redevelopment that won full planning permission at Elland Road, signals exactly that level of ambition.
What Eisenberg Built at Leeds
His three years at Leeds weren't quiet ones. The club won promotion back to the Premier League, survived their first season back in the top flight, and secured planning approval for a significant Elland Road expansion — a project Eisenberg is credited with driving internally. Leeds managing director Robbie Evans put it plainly: "Much as with players, when you employ excellent people who produce excellent results, sometimes the unfortunate effect is that they will attract interest elsewhere."
The 49ers Enterprises connection also matters here. The same American ownership group that backed Leeds' transformation — with Eisenberg remaining a senior advisor throughout — effectively owns both clubs. This isn't a cold poaching. It's an internal reshuffling of talent toward a project that needs a sharper commercial operation right now.
A Club Still Chasing the One Trophy That Matters
The Wave have packed stadiums, won the 2023 NWSL Shield and the 2024 Challenge Cup, and shattered franchise valuation records — all since launching in 2022. Under Jonas Eidevall in his second season, they're hovering inside the league's top six but haven't found the consistency a title run demands. The potential arrival of Catarina Macario after the summer could change that calculus on the pitch.
Off it, the gap has always been organizational infrastructure. That's precisely the problem Eisenberg is being brought in to fix. The Wave's ownership era is serious money meeting serious intent — the one thing missing is championship confetti, and now they have a CEO who's helped build a Premier League stadium to go find it.
