Michigan State’s new interim athletic director, Jon Palumbo, arrives with a résumé built around budgets, donors and big-picture operations - and a familiar connection to the man he replaces.
Palumbo was named interim athletic director after the change of heart from Guskiewicz and terms reached on the official Kentucky buyout of Batt. He will keep his role as CEO of the newly launched Spartan Ventures while also handling the athletic director search, with the goal of helping appoint someone to fill the position on the board. At MSU, Palumbo has already moved quickly, and his promotion fits the image of someone with vision.
His path to East Lansing has taken him through a long list of athletic departments. Palumbo earned a B.A. in Communications and an M.B.A. in Marketing from La Salle University, then began his career in 2003 at William and Mary as Athletics Business Manager.
After two and a half years managing a $12 million budget there, he moved to American University as an Associate Athletic Director. Two and a half years later, he took the same title at Maryland and stayed for four years.
In 2012, Palumbo went to VCU, where he spent six years as Deputy Director of Athletics. That was also where he began working more directly with donors and major gifts, a detail that lines up neatly with the thinking behind Spartan Ventures.
After VCU, he spent four years at Texas A&M as Director of Athletics and helped guide the program through COVID. He then moved to Georgia Tech as Executive Deputy Athletics Director and Chief Operating Officer, the same role he later held at MSU until last week.
The overlap between Palumbo and J Batt stands out. Palumbo left William and Mary just a few months before Batt arrived.
At Maryland, Palumbo was there a year before Batt and the two overlapped for three years, with Batt handling major donors and gifts. Batt later went to Alabama while Palumbo moved on to VCU and Texas A&M, before the two crossed paths again at Georgia Tech.
Batt held the same position Palumbo later occupied at Tech and MSU while he was at Alabama.
That shared background matters because both men have spent a lot of time working the donor side of college athletics - cultivating annual gifts, major gifts and the kind of support that can reshape a department. MSU and Guskiewicz are clearly aiming for more of that kind of lift, tapping into a large alumni base and, in some cases, alumni with very deep pockets.
Palumbo is married to Rachel and has two dogs. Beyond that, there is not much public personal detail, and in this case that seems fitting.
His track record is the story: updated facilities, donations, first-time championships, sold-out stadiums and success at nearly every stop. Now the question is whether Spartan Ventures becomes the next place where that pattern continues, and whether the interim label eventually disappears.
If Palumbo brings in money, improves NIL management and helps deliver championships, he is unlikely to face much resistance in East Lansing.
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