Phil Knight is well known for his business and as the co-founder of one of the most popular footwear brands in the world, Nike Incorporated. He founded this company with his former track and field coach, Bill Bowerman. He attended the University of Portland for his first degree and Stanford University for his MBA. He started Nike after his first degree and began by selling and marketing Japanese sports shoes from his trunk. Today, the company has grown into a billion-dollar business, with Phil Knight having donated over $2 billion to different causes so far.
Biography of Phil Knight
Phil Knight was born Phil Hampson Knight on February 24, 1983. He is of American descent and was born in Oregon, Portland to William and Lota Hatfield Knight. His father was a lawyer-turned-publisher whom he described as heavy-handed and affectionate. William enticed his son to get his own fortune and turned him down for a job at his old newspaper company, Oregon Journal
He attended Cleveland High School and is an alumnus of the University of Oregon and Stanford University where he received his first degree in journalism in 1959 and his master’s degree in commerce respectively in 1962. While studying at University of Oregon, he was a middle-distance runner under the legendary Bill Bowerman who later became his business partner.
Prior to Nike, Phil Knight enlisted in the Army and served for eight years, spending seven of the eight years in the Army Reserve. He started Nike when he developed an interest in studying running shoes. He began researching how they were similarly manufactured and marketed in the 1950s. His interest led him to write an article titled Can Japanese Sports Shoes Do For German Sports Shoes What Cameras Japanese did to the German cameras? His mention of German shoes was due to the fact that at the time, German shoes like Addidas and co held the controlling share of the sports shoe market in the United States.
He went ahead to talk with his former coach about his ideas and together they concluded that German running shoes were inferior, heavy and unsuitable for athletes. Having identified a problem, he found ways to solve it and after graduating from Stanford, he traveled around the world and stopped over in Japan, where he hired a company to supply him with track shoes. which were superior and more comfortable than what was available in US markets.
The company he met was called OnitsukaCorporation and he was impressed, not only by the superior quality of their products, but also by their low price. He began importing and distributing the shoes upon his return to Portland alongside his friend Bill Bowerman.
Their business flourished and spawned BlueRibbon Sports in 1964, and in the following years they opened stores in Oregon, Eugene and Santa Monica. However, in 1971 Phil and Bill started having problems with their Japanese suppliers and decided to start their own athletic shoe business and thus Nike was born. The name originated from a suggestion from one of their employees who advised that the company be named after the Greek goddess of victory.
The next step was to step up their marketing strategies, this led to Phil developing acquaintances and relationships with famous athletes who might try to publicize his role models. Athletes such as Steve Prefontaine, known for his long-distance running records, wore this new model of shoe and brought in huge revenues for Nike, as many others patronized Phil’s product. In 1972 Phil released the first Cortez model, it became an instant hit and by 1981 Nike had taken half of the athletic shoe market.
Like most footwear companies, Phil started giving endorsement deals to celebrities such as John McEnroe, Michael Jordan, Andre Agassi, among other famous sportsmen. It expanded in 1990 and began producing golf, soccer and hockey apparel; a smart move that dramatically increased the company’s revenue.
Knight was in the news for more issues than his success story when he was accused of underpaying his Asian employees. He was trolled by human rights groups who also accused his company of sexual assaults and corporate assaults; despite this, the company remained one of the largest shoemaking companies in the world.
Phil Knight retired as CEO of Nike in 2004 but still retains his position as chairman. Currently, Nike has 52 branches worldwide and employs more than 74,000 people. Phil is also known for his philanthropic endeavors such as his gift of $105 million to Stanford Business School in 2006, $100 million to OHSU Cancer Institute in 2008, among others.
Net value
The business tycoon made his fortune from his gigantic shoe manufacturing company Nike and is worth a lot. In 2016, it was estimated at $25.6 billion by Forbes. This figure increased in 2017 to $26.6 billion, making him the 29th richest man in the world, and in 2018 he was estimated at $34.7 billion. He is currently the 28th richest man in the world.
Family life: wife and children
Phil Knight has no divorce records and has been married to Penelope Parks since 1968. They have three children; Travis, Christina and Matthew Knight. Travis is an animation actor while Matthew died in a scuba diving accident in 2004. Nothing is known about his daughter, Christina Knight.