Brad Walker, the current vice president, head of basketball operations for the National Basketball Association (NBA) G League, was named the America East Conference’s next commissioner on August 12.

Walker, who will begin his tenure on September 13, becomes the fifth commissioner in the America East’s 42-year history. He will succeed Amy Huchthausen, who resigned in June after 10 years to become the chief impact and culture officer of Stavvy, a financial technology company.

“Our objective was to identify a visionary leader who could move our conference forward and lead us to great heights, and we definitely found that in Brad,” Stony Brook Director of Athletics Shawn Heilbron, who served on the search committee for the position, said. “His vision for how to elevate the America East Conference to the next level and navigate the challenges of the current landscape is exactly what is needed.”

Prior to his role in the NBA G League, which he held for five years, Walker was an experienced leader at the collegiate athletics level. He began his career as the assistant director for media relations at the Summit League in 1999 before moving on to the West Coast Conference (WCC), where he was the associate commissioner from 2001 to 2007. As the WCC’s associate commissioner, Walker led an effort to negotiate a five-year television contract with ESPN, the highest-paying contract in WCC history at the time.

Walker then became the associate commissioner for operations and chief operating officer for the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) from 2007 to 2016. In this role, he oversaw the conference’s budget and financial operations while also presiding over its football and men’s basketball teams. In 2009, Walker also served as the interim commissioner for five months, during which he secured rights for the OVC to host the rounds of 64 and 32 for the 2012 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament.

“I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to get to know Brad during this search process as part of the committee,” Nia Wattley, a redshirt-junior middle blocker on the volleyball team and an America East Student-Athlete Advisory Committee chair, said. “He is the perfect person to lead the America East Conference to uncharted success, and most importantly, support and elevate us as student-athletes.”

A student-athlete himself, Walker played men’s basketball at Division II Bentley University, where he graduated in 1996 with a degree in marketing while serving as team captain during his senior year.