Background and Expertise

Dr. Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff is a globally-recognized sports diplomacy expert, speaker, and consultant who helps industry professionals be more effective communicators to international audiences by drawing on her deep expertise in sports, communications, and diplomacy.

Lindsay’s pioneering work as a scholar-practitioner of basketball diplomacy and Franco-American sports diplomacy inscribed the power of individual lived experiences into the public record. Thanks to these blueprints, citizens worldwide can be empowered to be better sports diplomats – or to take inspiration from a sports diplomat’s playbook – in leveling-up their leadership, engagement, and storytelling abilities. 

Krasnoff has worked with institutions like the UT Center for Sport, Peace & Society, Laureus Foundation, FIBA Foundation, the NBA Players Association, NBPA Foundation, as well as French and American government representatives and ambassadors, to demystify sports diplomacy and use it as a slam dunk for humanity in their strategic communications, storytelling, professional training, and leadership development efforts. 

Outside her consulting practice, Krasnoff is Director of FranceAndUS and author of Basketball Empire: France and the Making of a Global NBA and WNBA (Bloomsbury, 2023), Views From the Embassy: The Role of the U.S. Diplomatic Community in France, 1914 (U.S. Department of State, 2014), and The Making of Les Bleus: Sport in France (Lexington Books 2013). She has written about global sports for TIME, The Athletic, CNN International, ESPN, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and others, and is a Visiting Clinical Assistant Professor at the Robert Preston Tisch Institute for Global Sport, New York University. 

Previously she served as a Research Associate with the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, SOAS University of London, where she co-directed the “Basketball Diplomacy in Africa Oral History Project” centered on the NBA’s Basketball Africa League.

Krasnoff served as a historian for the Office of the Historian in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Public Affairs, where she devised communications strategies and public affairs/public history storytelling content. She originated Office of the Historian offerings like the Historical Briefing Program, which provided critical information for ambassadors and Foreign Service Officers to base policy decisions and public diplomacy programs on while avoiding blunders, co-directed the office’s public outreach initiatives, and wrote policy papers on issues pertaining to U.S. foreign policy. Lindsay pioneered sports diplomacy briefings for ambassadors and senior diplomats, including those working with/within the Department's Sports Diplomacy division.

Today she sits on the Board of Advisors of Jetr Global Sport + Entertainment, providing sports diplomacy counsel and feedback. Her service also includes mentoring through the SIGA Women Global Mentorship Programme, contributions as a scientific committee member of RERIS Studies in International Sport series (DeGruyter) and editorial board member of the Sports Law, Policy & Diplomacy Journal. Lindsay has previously served as an advisory board member for the History Communications Institute, the U.S. National Archives exhibit “All American: The Power of Sports,” and co-director of sports diplomacy for Sport & Démocratie.

Krasnoff holds a PhD in History from The Graduate Center (City University of New York), MA in Journalism and French Studies (NYU), and BA in International Affairs (The George Washington University). 

You can find her in the winter months carving turns down ski slopes.