Life Lessons: Spectrum Center GM Donna Julian

Donna Julian has been the woman in charge of the Spectrum Center for more than 20 years. You’ll find her in the lobby before events, greeting longtime Hornets season ticket holders and first-time concertgoers as if it was her first week on the job.

“I can tell you about great events I love, of course. But what I love about this job is the energy in that arena during an event,” she says. “I love the fact that people are coming together, all different types of people. It’s the best of us.” 

Julian, who grew up in Columbia, Maryland, was hooked on the sports and entertainment industry from an early age—her bedtime lullaby was the staticky drone of sports radio, and her dad took her to games in nearby Baltimore. As she pursued a master’s in sports management at Ohio University, then served as an intern with the then-Washington Bullets of the NBA, Julian was immediately drawn to the buzz of an arena. She decided she wanted to manage a similar venue. 

When she began her career in the mid-’80s, she was one of the only women of color in the industry. “As much as that can be challenging,” she says, “there’s part of me that felt like I should be there.” The NBA offered her a job with the Bobcats (now the Hornets) in 2005, and Julian took it. She wants young women and people of color to see her in this role. “It’s about the work and the business,” she says, “and that’s what I’m going to lay my hat on.” 

Today, the Matthews mother of two is the executive vice president and Spectrum Center general manager for Hornets Sports & Entertainment; she is one of the driving forces behind ongoing improvements to the arena. She’s active on the Blumenthal Arts board and in Big Brothers Big Sisters. And she’s a huge fan of the singer Pink. (She has the arena show to thank for this discovery.)  

Here’s Julian in her own words, edited for length and clarity.

I came from a mother and a father who were so extremely supportive of me trying and doing different things. That is so powerful, and I didn’t realize it at the time. It’s building in your inner soul that, You know what? I can do something. 

My father was a huge sports fan. He had a second (daughter), and he said, “We’re just going to drag her to sporting events.” We were going to Baltimore Orioles and Baltimore Colts games. I’d be going with my dad, and there’d be lots of fathers and sons and then my father and me. It kind of got me into that male world a little bit. But it was just another opportunity for me to just find what I really love. That created my foundation for the love of sports. 

I had a scholarship to Ohio University to play tennis. I thought I wanted to be a female sports broadcaster because there weren’t many females doing it at the time. But they were starting this sports management field, which was really new back then. So I did an internship at the Washington Wizards organization, which was the Washington Bullets back then. This was the first real big change for me. 

The building at the time, the Capital Centre, had so many different events. They’d have a (Bullets) game one night, then they’d have a Georgetown basketball game, then hockey, then, the next night, a circus. I got overwhelmed with excitement witnessing the energy that was in the building, the way the building transformed to all these different things. 

I went to my boss, and I said, “What’s the top job in this whole arena?” And he goes, “Well, you need to be an arena general manager.” And I said, “Well, that is what I’m going to do.” I believe that sports and entertainment have the ability to bring out the best in people. 

Generally speaking, people are there to have a good time. You’re high-fiving a person you’ve never met before. You go to a concert, you’re dancing with someone. That just meant something to me, and that is the part that I love the most. It is diversification. 

I was dedicated. I was committed. I was like, “If you give me a chance, I promise I will work harder than anybody else.” I won’t make decisions that I don’t know the right answer to. I became the assistant general manager in Baltimore (in 1989), and then I became the general manager for about 14 years.

The Charlotte opportunity came up and sounded interesting. One, it was an NBA team, which for me was a goal. It was also the opening of the building for the first time. So I moved to Charlotte in December of 2004. My husband was awesome because he moved here for me. I have two sons, Griffin and Donovan. They were very young at that point. We felt like Charlotte was going to be a great place to raise a family. 

Donna Julian, shown here at a May 2024 “tipoff event,” is overseeing Reimagine Spectrum Center, a two-phase project to upgrade the 20-year-old arena. Courtesy, Charlotte Hornets

We opened the building in October of 2005 with the Rolling Stones. Then we had our first Bobcats game. The NBA All-Star game was just an incredible opportunity, too. We did the 2012 DNC national convention. These are events that if you told me I’d be having any exposure to, I’d be like, “No way.” 

Twenty-five years ago, I may have been the first person of color or the first woman some of these men had ever even dealt with on a professional level. So I did feel an awful lot of pressure. I had a lot of situations where people would come to me and say, “Hey, I’m trying to look for the general manager of the building.” I’d say, “You’re looking at her. It’s me.”

Hopefully I made a difference for the person who might’ve come behind me. Even though I’m not somebody who needs to be in the forefront all the time, I realize I do have to get out there because people need to see me. And more importantly, they need to see that they can do whatever they want to do.

I’ve given people opportunities to get into this business so that they can be in positions to grow and develop. Even today, it’s still a very male-dominant role. I’ve been able to work with people to help them develop their dreams—not my dreams for them, but their dreams. 

There’s something about having people come into that arena and making an impact on them. Charlotte is such a phenomenal city to host these events. We look at the arena as a city asset, and we’re very strategic about having a diversification of lineups of acts, whether it’s a country show or a comedian.

You may not remember an item you got, but you’re going to remember the first concert you went to. I see a father bringing a son to a concert for the first time or see people coming to the circus for the first time. We have an obligation in my mind, and with how I operate, for guests to not just to have a good time but to elevate their experience. There’s something about having people come into that arena for the first time and making an impact on them. 

So I’m in that lobby when we open our doors. It’s about these people who are coming in here, and they’re so excited. It comes down to the people for me. I do that deliberately for a touchpoint because I got to get that good feeling. I know that that’s what it’s all about.