Jim Tanner is the President of North America for Tandem Sports + Entertainment/You First Sports, a full-service sports and entertainment agency with expertise in athlete management, talent representation, marketing, communications and publicity services. Jim has extensive experience in the sports and entertainment industry and represents some of the biggest stars in professional sports and broadcasting, including elite NBA and WNBA athletes, broadcasters, coaches, industry executives and sports organizations.

For more than 20 years, Jim has represented professional athletes in a range of business and legal matters—from player contract negotiations to advertising and marketing contracts. He is certified as an agent by both the National Basketball Players Association ("NBPA") and the Women's National Basketball Players Association ("WNBPA").

Jim has twice been recognized by Sports Illustrated as one of the "101 Most Influential Minorities in Sports" and he has repeatedly appeared in Washingtonian's list of "Top Lawyers" for media and sports law. Additionally, Jim was named to the Washington Business Journal’s 2019 class of Minority Business Leaders. Tandem was also honored as one of Washington Business Journal’s “Best Places to Work.” Jim was one of 10 agents invited to serve on the NBPA Agent Advisory Committee. He has also been invited to speak to the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics and the NCAA Commission on College Basketball, and the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.

Jim was a Morehead-Cain Scholar at UNC-Chapel Hill and received his BA in 1990, going on to earn his JD from the University of Chicago. Jim worked as an attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, specializing in mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, and general corporate law before becoming a partner at Williams & Connolly LLP. Jim founded Tandem Sports + Entertainment in 2013 and served as the company’s president until merging with You First Sports in 2020. Jim is admitted to the bars of Illinois and the District of Columbia.

Tandem’s roster of clients includes Ja Morant, Jarrett Allen, Thaddeus Young, Serge Ibaka, and Justin Jackson, and Hall of Famers Tim Duncan, Grant Hill, Ray Allen, Dominique Wilkins and Tamika Catchings. Marketing and public relations clients include Cincinnati Reds Manager David Bell and Tampa Rays Mike Ford. Tandem also provides communications services for authors including Andrea Chamblee (“The Capital of Basketball”) and sports documentaries including “A Most Beautiful Thing.”