Phil Knight

Phil Knight is the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Nike, the world's largest and most iconic athletic footwear and apparel company. What began in 1964 as a small partnership called Blue Ribbon Sports — with Knight selling Japanese running shoes out of the trunk of his car at track meets — has grown into a global brand valued at over $100 billion. Knight's combination of entrepreneurial hustle, marketing genius, and authentic passion for athletics built Nike into one of the most recognized and beloved brands on Earth.

Knight's genius was in understanding that athletic shoes were not just functional products but powerful vehicles for aspiration, identity, and culture. His partnership with legendary University of Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman created innovative products (including the famous waffle sole), while his marketing vision — exemplified by the iconic Swoosh logo and the "Just Do It" campaign — transcended sports to become part of global popular culture. The signing of Michael Jordan in 1984 and the creation of the Air Jordan brand proved to be perhaps the most successful athlete endorsement in business history.

A graduate of the University of Oregon and Stanford Business School, Knight has been extraordinarily generous to both institutions. His $500 million gift to Stanford is one of the largest in the history of higher education, and his donations to the University of Oregon have funded state-of-the-art athletic facilities, scholarships, and academic programs. His memoir "Shoe Dog" became a bestselling book celebrated for its honest, inspiring account of entrepreneurship. Knight's legacy extends far beyond business — he helped create an entire culture of athletic aspiration that has inspired millions of people to pursue excellence in sport and in life.

Philip Hampson Knight was born on February 24, 1938, in Portland, Oregon. His father, William Knight, was a lawyer who published the Oregon Journal newspaper. Phil was a competitive middle-distance runner at Cleveland High School in Portland and continued running at the University of Oregon under the legendary track coach Bill Bowerman — a relationship that would change the athletic shoe industry forever. Knight earned his bachelor's degree in journalism from Oregon in 1959, served a year in the U.S. Army, and then enrolled at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he earned his MBA in 1962. It was in a Stanford entrepreneurship class that Knight wrote a paper arguing that low-cost, high-quality Japanese running shoes could displace the German brands (Adidas and Puma) that then dominated the market. That term paper became the business plan for what would become Nike.