Phil Knight Net Worth 2024

What is Phil Knight’s Net Worth?

Phil Knight is an American businessman, sports activities fan and philanthropist who has a net worth of $43 billion. Phil Knight earned his net worth because the founder and largest particular person shareholder of Nike Inc. Directly and thru trusts, Phil Knight and his family members personal roughly 300 million shares of Nike. The overwhelming majority of their holdings are managed by a family belief known as Swoosh. Phil personally continues to personal 32 million shares on his personal and his son Travis Knight additionally instantly owns 41 million shares.

Phil Knight, co-founder and former CEO of Nike, Inc., has had a transformative influence on the athletic footwear and attire business. Born in Portland, Oregon, Knight was a monitor athlete on the University of Oregon the place he developed a ardour for trainers. This curiosity led him to pursue a graduate diploma in enterprise at Stanford University, the place he wrote a paper proposing high-quality trainers from Japan may compete with established German manufacturers within the American market.

After graduating, Knight put his idea into observe. He traveled to Japan and secured a distribution take care of Onitsuka Tiger, a Japanese shoe producer. In 1964, Knight and his former monitor coach, Bill Bowerman, co-founded Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS) to promote these footwear within the U.S. Bowerman’s technical improvements in shoe design, mixed with Knight’s enterprise acumen, proved to be a robust partnership.

In 1971, BRS transitioned into Nike, named after the Greek goddess of victory. Knight’s advertising and marketing savvy grew to become evident with the introduction of the “swoosh” emblem and the endorsement of athletes, which performed a big position in establishing Nike’s model. One of probably the most notable early endorsements was the signing of basketball participant Michael Jordan in 1984, resulting in the creation of the Air Jordan line of footwear, a pivotal second on the earth of sports activities advertising and marketing.

Under Knight’s management, Nike grew into a world behemoth, dominating the sportswear market and increasing into varied sports activities and areas. Knight’s imaginative and prescient prolonged past product innovation and advertising and marketing; he additionally targeted on company tradition, creating an atmosphere that valued creativity and innovation.

Knight stepped down as CEO of Nike in 2004 however remained actively concerned as chairman till 2016. His management fashion and enterprise methods have been extensively studied and admired within the company world. He can also be identified for his philanthropic efforts, significantly in training and healthcare, typically contributing to the University of Oregon and different organizations.

Early Life

Philip Hampson Knight was born in Portland, Oregon, on February 24, 1938. His dad and mom are Lota Knight (née Hatfield) and Bill Knight, was a lawyer and later a newspaper writer. Knight was raised within the Portland neighborhood of Eastmoreland, and graduated from Cleveland High School. He then continued his training on the University of Oregon, the place he was a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, labored as a sports activities reporter for the Oregon Daily Emerald, and was a middle-distance runner. He graduated from college in 1959 with a level in journalism.

Career

Following his commencement from the University of Oregon, Knight enlisted within the United States Army, serving one yr of energetic obligation after which seven years within the Army Reserve. Following the top of his energetic obligation, Knight enrolled at Standard Graduate School of Business, graduating in 1962 with a grasp’s diploma in enterprise administration. He then set out on a commencement journey which included a cease in Kobe, Japan, the place he found Tiger model trainers, manufactured by Onitsuka Co. in Kobe. He was very impressed by the standard of the footwear and their low price, and managed to arrange a gathering between himself and Mr. Onitsuka. This is how he secured the distribution rights for Tiger within the western United States.

While he was ready for the primary Tiger samples to be shipped to Portland, a course of which took greater than a yr, he took a job as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) with Coopers & Lybrand, then with Price Waterhouse. He additionally taught as an accounting professor at Portland State University (PSU). After he ultimately acquired the Tiger trainers, he despatched samples to Bill Bowerman, his previous monitor coach on the University of Oregon. Not solely did Bowerman truly place an order for the footwear, he truly propositioned Knight to develop into his enterprise associate. Thus, on January 25, 1964, Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS) was based; that is the corporate that might later develop into Nike.

Subsequently, Knight started promoting the Tiger footwear out of his automobile, a inexperienced Plymouth Valiant, at varied monitor meets throughout the Pacific Northwest. By 1969, he was making sufficient cash from these gross sales to stop his accountant job and work for Blue Ribbon Sports full-time. The firm was renamed Nike, after the Greek winged goddess of victory, on the suggestion of their first worker, Jeff Johnson. They received their iconic “swoosh” emblem from graphic design scholar Carolyn Davidson in 1971, paying her $35 for the fee. She was later given an undisclosed quantity of Nike inventory. Over the following 4 many years, Knight grew Nike from a tiny upstart shoe firm, into one of many largest and most well-known manufacturers of all time. In November 2004, he resigned as Nike’s CEO, however he stayed on with the corporate because the chairman of the board. In June 2015, Knight introduced he was stepping down as Nike’s chairman, and he formally retired from the corporate’s board on the finish of June 2016.

In addition to his work at Nike, Knight additionally had a hand within the success of the animation studio Laika. The Will Vinton Studios, an animation firm, had sought exterior traders attributable to speedy progress within the late Nineteen Nineties. Knight took on a 15 p.c stake within the firm in 1998, and his son Travis joined the corporate as an animator. Eventually, Knight bought Will Vinton Studios, and in 2003 he branded the corporate below the brand new title Laika. Laika’s first characteristic movie was the cease movement animated movie “Coraline” (2009). Travis knight has since been promoted to be the CEO and president of Laika.

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Other Work and Philanthropy

In April 2016, Simon & Schuster printed Knight’s memoir, “Shoe Dog”. Knight has given greater than $1 billion to charity, together with a $500 million donation to the University of Oregon Health & Science most cancers middle; $400 million to Stanford University to begin the Rhodes Scholarship-inspired Knight-Hennessy Scholars graduate-level training program; and $105 million to the Standford Graduate School of Business.

Personal Life

In 1963, Phil Knight married Penelope “Penny” Parks and so they had three grown youngsters, Matthew, Travis, and Christina. The couple had first met whereas he was working at Portland State University. In 2004, Matthew sadly handed away whereas scuba diving in El Salvador attributable to an undetected congenital coronary heart defect. Phil and his spouse Penelope now stay in Beaverton, Oregon. Phil and Penny, have been very long time contributors and supporters for the University of Oregon athletic fund and have been honored by many instances over by the college. The faculty even named the library after his mom and his father’s title seems on the legislation faculty, and the Matthew Knight Arena was named in honor of their late son in 2011. Because of all of the contributions Phil Knight has given to sports activities, he was inducted within the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame.