The Launch Point: How Peyton Washington Turned a Passion for Athletics into an MLB Career

Peyton Washington has always known she wanted sports and her career to intersect. 

Her passion for athletics started at a young age and followed her into adulthood, including four years on the Wake Forest University volleyball team. But despite knowing what she wanted her career path to look like, Peyton was uncertain how it would play out. 

Then, after graduating in 2022 with a B.S. in Communication and earning her Project Management Certificate from Wake Forest School of Professional Studies, she found her footing in the world of project management.

And today, project management allows her to bring together her other passion in life—sports.

“As Sr. Project Coordinator on the Global Design team at Major League Baseball, I’ve been able to bring those two pieces of my career together in a way that feels really meaningful to me,” she said. 

Coursework in Action 

The Project Management Certificate consists of four foundational courses—and it taught Peyton skills that she still uses on a regular basis. 

“One of the biggest things I took away from the curriculum was how to build effective project timelines and, more importantly, how to make those timelines more efficient,” she explained. “Learning to identify which tasks can happen in parallel rather than treating everything as a linear process has been incredibly useful in my current role.”

Beyond the technical aspects of project management, Peyton also values the interpersonal skills the program helped sharpen, including stakeholder management and communication. It’s helped her coordinate across multiple departments, teams, designers, and stakeholders. But looking back, her favorite course in the program was Mastering the Project Life Cycle because it gave Peyton the opportunity to learn about best practices and apply them to real-life examples. 

“I can confidently say that I still use many of those best practices in my current role,” she said. “And, honestly, I apply them to my personal life, too. Once you have a PM brain, it’s hard to turn it off.”

Her Next Starting Line

On November 1, 2026, Peyton will toe the starting line for the New York City Marathon. She will be running those 26.2 miles to raise money for The Athlete Survivors’ Assist (The Assist), an organization that supports survivors of sexual violence through advocacy, resources, and financial assistance.

Her passion for athlete advocacy was sparked in college through The Hidden Opponent. The experience opened her eyes to the importance of creating safer and more supportive environments for athletes.

“I’ve seen firsthand how abuse within sports can dim an athlete’s light and cause them to lose their love for something they were once so passionate about,” she explained. “That’s a huge part of why The Assist resonated with me. Every athlete deserves to have the opportunity to experience those things in a safe environment.”

Finding the Overlap 

Over the past couple of years, one thing has become clear to Peyton—project management can touch every aspect of life, both personally and professionally.

“Whether you’re managing a major project or trying to run 26.2 miles, the big goal can feel overwhelming if you look at it all at once. Breaking it down into smaller pieces makes it feel much more achievable,” she explained.

She took strategies she learned at Wake Forest SPS and on the job and applied them to a personal goal. She started with her end goal (completing 26.2 miles on race day) and then worked backwards by creating smaller, manageable tasks.

But in marathon training, Peyton’s also had to use another vital project management skill. She’s had to remain agile.

“Projects rarely go perfectly, and neither does marathon training,” she said. “You have to be flexible, reassess the timeline, adjust when something unexpected comes up, and keep moving toward the larger goal.”

Learn more about the Project Management Graduate Certificate. Request more information.