WNBA, NWSL owner on the personality test she uses for team success

Business leaders often look back to “aha” moments in their lives for enduring lessons about their success.

For Kara Nortman, who had a long and successful career in technology and venture capital before becoming a women’s professional sports owner, that moment arrived when she attended the 2015 Women’s World Cup Final in Vancouver.

After watching the U.S. team win, Nortman couldn’t find a jersey to buy, or much of any merch, or even information online about women’s soccer. And that gap stayed with her as something that suggested an untapped business opportunity. She began researching women’s soccer, went on to advise the U.S. women’s national team players’ union, and ultimately co-founded Angel City Football Club in Los Angeles, the most valuable women’s football club in the world, and now majority owned by former Disney CEO Bob Iger and his wife Willow Bay.

But looking back, Nortman says none of that would have occurred without her belief in a personality test called the Enneagram. It helped her understand why following her gut on women’s sports and changing her career trajectory felt right. “The Enneagram was a huge unlock for me,” she said on the latest episode of the CNBC Changemakers podcast, explaining that she identifies as a Type Seven, which she connects with “discovery, creation [and] adventure.”

Nortman says over the course of her career as a team leader, she has tried multiple personality assessment tools, including the DiSC model, the Hogan Assessment System, and Myers-Briggs, but she says that they didn’t lead to the kind of change in team dynamics she was looking for.

The Enneagram groups people into nine personality types based on their core motivations. Nortman said the framework not only helped her better understand herself, but also what drives others. While some people are motivated by power, others may be driven by creativity, safety or rules, she said.

That perspective shaped the way Nortman — who also co-founded Monarch Collective, an investment firm focused on women’s sports — has approached building teams. In addition to Angel City FC, Monarch is an investor in NWSL teams Boston Legacy FC and San Diego Wave, German Bundesliga team FC Viktoria Berlin, and the WNBA’s Cleveland Sirens, set to debut in the 2028 season.

Nortman said that she used the Enneagram with Angel City co-founders Natalie Portman and Julie Uhrman to discuss how they communicated and made decisions. When she launched Monarch Collective with Jasmine Robinson, she said, they used the test with each other and began profiling people who joined the firm.

The point isn’t just about identifying someone’s “type,” according to Nortman.

It’s understanding how various personalities affect a team and how to help people work well with each other. Nortman said during the podcast…