Report: Elizabeth Benn Becomes Mets' Highest-Ranking Female Baseball Ops Member Ever

The New York Mets have reportedly hired Elizabeth Benn to serve as the team's director of major league operations, per Anthony DiComo of MLB.com, making her the highest-ranked female executive in franchise history.

Benn previously worked in the MLB league office.

She interned at the league office starting in 2017, working her way to a senior coordinator of baseball operations position with Major League Baseball.

"I never considered working in baseball when I was younger—aside from when I thought I was going to be the first female pitcher in the major leagues," Benn told Rustin Dodd of The Athletic in 2019. "I didn't really know that working in baseball was an option. We see the people who are on the field. But we often don't see the people in the front office or in the commissioner's office."

New York also hired Gretchen Aucoin to a minor league role in January, making her the first female coach in organizational history.

While there have been strides toward having more female representation across baseball in coaching and executive positions, stories like Benn's remain more of the exception than the rule.

In November 2020, Kim Ng was named the general manager of the Miami Marlins, making her the first woman ever to hold the position in MLB history or in the history of the four major sporting leagues in the United States, including the NFL, NBA and NHL.

"The idea that it has affected this many people is just extraordinary," Ng said at her introductory press conference. "I thought it would be a big deal, but this is beyond my expectations—and I think beyond many people's expectation."

As ESPN's Joon Lee reported in April 2021, the number of women in baseball operations roles rose from 106 in 2016 to 225 in 2020. The number of baseball operations jobs in general rose from 4,442 to 4,951, however, with just 23.8 percent of those new jobs going to women.

"Kim's hiring is progress, but there's a lot of work to be done," a female baseball operations employee for a National League team told Lee at the time.