According to Ad Age, Phoenix Suns basketball star Steve Nash and Deutsch’s Michael Duda are opening a marketing consultancy firm dubbed Consigliere.
The firm is armed with a $20 million investment fund, which it will use to take stakes in start-up companies.
Nash and Duda want entrepreneurs to consider marketing not as an afterthought, but as a strategic part of the growth process. It’ll focus on investing in budding firms in only a few sectors, such as e-commerce, sports and durables.
Nash also owns Meathawk, a film-production company that produced creative projects for Vitamin Water and Nike and he is working on a documentary about Pele, one of the greats of Mr. Nash’s second-favorite sport, soccer. He also owns a chain of gyms, a vitamin company and a social-media company, Apoko, which aims to help celebrities and athletes better connect with their fans on Facebook or Twitter.