PANDA Stronger is an all-in-one software solution built for a fragmented industry, where coaches, athletes, and administrators are forced to juggle a multitude of one-off programs just to manage their teams, profiles, and day-to-day tasks. It was founded with a clear purpose: to replace that patchwork with a single connected platform, making youth sports more accessible, affordable, and effective for student-athletes and their families, and cutting software costs for the coaches, club directors, and administrators who run them. With more than three decades of experience in finance as a CFO and Controller for technology companies, founder and CEO Glen Parrillo brought a strong business perspective to these challenges, and his background in coaching and lifelong passion for sports further shaped his vision.

The youth sports industry has grown into a multibillion-dollar market, yet access remains a challenge for many families. Rising participation costs have created a system where families with greater financial resources can afford additional training, programs, and opportunities. As a result, talented athletes can sometimes be overlooked simply because they cannot afford the traditional pay-to-play model.

Parrillo saw an opportunity to address this gap by bringing more affordable and effective technology to schools and youth sports clubs. However, building the technology has required significant time, research, development, and financial commitment. Innovation has been cultivated via direct interaction and feedback from current athletic directors who struggle to find solutions that consolidates all organizational and team-based data, in addition to saving money and avoiding duplicate or redundant data entry.

Business Fortune spoke exclusively with PANDA Stronger’s founder and CEO, Glen Parrillo, about his vision to transform youth sports through integrated technology, affordable solutions, performance analytics, AI-based innovation, and connected tools that empower schools, clubs, coaches, athletes, and families.

Interview Highlights

PANDA brings athletic management, analytics, communication, recruiting, registration, and other functions together. Why was building an integrated platform important to your original vision?

The primary reason was personal.  As a youth soccer coach for 20 years, I saw my own children and kids I coach get left on the sidelines because the industry is pricing out the economically disadvantaged family and student-athlete.  Using my background as a CFO and Controller for technology companies, I was confident I could do it better than even some of the bigger players in the industry. 

Other software providers deliver competent and pricy individual tools, but those systems often do not communicate with one another. As a result, athletic directors, club directors, coaches, and administrators are often required to purchase, manage, and perform duplicate information for multiple pieces of software.  That creates unnecessary costs for organizations and adds complexity to everyday operations.

The impact also reaches student-athletes and their parents, who may have to download multiple applications, manage different accounts, and pay for several services. We saw an opportunity to bring these functions together through one connected ecosystem. By consolidating essential tools for athletic departments, coaches, athletes, and parents, PANDA Stronger can simplify operations, reduce duplication, and create a more efficient and cost-effective experience for everyone involved.

What distinguishes PANDA Stronger from other sports technology platforms, and why should organizations consider moving away from systems they already understand and trust?

For us, it comes down to three words: efficiency, effectiveness, and affordability. We were a trendsetter in bringing these three elements together in one comprehensive platform designed for everyone across the athletic ecosystem. Even as a small company, we recognize that larger organizations are paying close attention to what we are building, and we see that as validation of the need for a different approach.  From an affordability perspective, PANDA is more than 50% less than all the services you would have to consolidate and buy to equal our platform. 

Coaches run their teams, athletes build their profiles and track development, officials manage their assignments, and directors manage their full department or club organization.

Moreover, our end goal is to benefit the student-athlete. But along that pathway, we create meaningful value for clubs, schools, and youth sports organizations as well. We believe that combination of efficiency, effectiveness, and affordability gives PANDA Stronger a distinctive place in the market.

How does PANDA Stronger use performance data to help athletes and coaches make better decisions without reducing an    athlete's potential to statistics alone?

It starts with data and analytics.  Everything is moving toward analytics, and sports is no exception. Look at the NFL. Almost everything they do, from performance evaluation to marketing, is increasingly driven by data and analytics. The Indianapolis Combine is a great example of how measurable performance can help athletes understand how that fitness data can help market their abilities.

As more young athletes use PANDA Stronger to track their performance and compare their analytics, they can better understand what they need to achieve to compete at every level. The same data can also give coaches valuable insights into where each athlete needs additional development.

For example, an athlete may have excellent strength but lack the quickness needed to compete effectively against teammates or other athletes at the same level and position. By turning performance data into actionable insights, PANDA Stronger can help coaches identify those areas and guide athletes toward targeted development. For young athletes willing to put in the work, that intelligence can make a meaningful difference.

As artificial intelligence continues transforming sports technology, where do you see AI creating the greatest practical value within PANDA Stronger and its services?

We have a balanced view of AI. We use AI where it can make our system lighter, more efficient, and easier for our clients to use. For example, it helps power our league scheduling system, allowing us to build a complete conference schedule for one sport in just five to 10 minutes. We never use AI to eliminate jobs or replace the human element of the service. When people call us, they do not talk to an AI agent.  They talk to a real person.  Our priority is to keep PANDA Stronger secure, private, and focused on supporting athletic development.

PANDA serves schools, clubs, coaches, athletes, parents, and college programs. How do you manage the different needs and expectations of these users?

We've designed role-specific experiences for each stakeholder because what an athletic director needs from the platform may differ from what an athlete or coach needs. PANDA brings these stakeholders together through tools designed for athletic department management, team communication, scheduling, fitness tracking, and athlete development.

As a result, we have to be very thoughtful about how we communicate the value of each component. At the same time, our broader goal is to create harmony across these services so that every constituent benefits from the PANDA ecosystem. As we achieve that alignment, we believe we can drive sustainable, exponential growth while creating meaningful value for schools, athletes, coaches, parents, and our other stakeholders.

What major products, features, partnerships, or technological developments are currently in the pipeline that could significantly expand PANDA Stronger's capabilities and market reach?

In October 2026, we are releasing two major enhancements: 1) PANDA Pay – an ability for schools or assigners to pay referees, and 2) Website hosting – allows directors the ability to build and maintain a public website for their athletic department or club organization, while at the same time, connecting all of that data to our Director PRO module. 

Our focus is on developing new solutions that can further support athletes, coaches, parents, and athletic organizations. We are exploring opportunities across areas such as wearable technology, athletic gear, video, performance tracking, and other closely related technologies. These areas align naturally with our existing platform, which already provides tools for fitness tracking, video, team management, communication, and athletic performance.

As these initiatives progress, our goal is to create practical tools that bring greater value to the athletic community while making it easier to track performance, communicate, and support athlete development. We are excited about what is ahead, but we also want to be thoughtful about when and how we share details publicly.

Is there any important achievement, initiative, upcoming development, or aspect of PANDA Stronger's journey that you would like us to highlight but have not discussed?

As I mentioned, we are releasing PANDA PAY and our website hosting feature this month.  Important to highlight here is our commitment and velocity to deliver high quality and well-functioning software to our customer base. 

We have a deeper vision to continue to innovate, so our ability to avoid bureaucracy and inefficiency moves us ahead of our competition.

Under the Leadership of Glen Parrillo

Glen Parrillo is an accomplished CFO and Controller with more than 34 years of experience and a lifelong passion for sports. He began his career at E&Y in 1991 before moving into the dot-com era, where he guided entrepreneurial and struggling companies by developing innovative business plans.

Throughout his career, Parrillo has raised more than $50 million in capital for technology firms. During his tenure at AccuWeather, he helped grow the company’s annual revenues threefold between 2013 and 2021 while expanding its operations into six countries.

Parrillo currently serves as the CFO of a transit-based technology company in State College, Pennsylvania, while also serving on the boards of several community-based organizations. He has also led business development efforts for both a global professional services firm and a regional CPA practice, consistently embracing challenges that drive growth and transformation.

“Three words: efficiency, effectiveness, and affordability. We were a trendsetter in bringing these together in one comprehensive platform for the entire athletic ecosystem.”