Phil Knight A Biography

Phil Knight is an American business magnate and philanthropist. A native of Oregon, he is the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Nike, Inc., and previously served as chairman and CEO of the company. In November 2015, Forbes named Knight the 15th richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$28.1 billion. He is also the owner of the stop motion film production company Laika. A graduate of the University of Oregon and Stanford Graduate School of Business (Stanford GSB), he has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to both schools; Knight gave the largest donation in history at the time to Stanford's business school in 2006. In 2016, he again matched the record for the largest individual donation ever to a university with a $400 million gift to Stanford's new Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program. He ran track under coach Bill Bowerman at the University of Oregon, with whom he would co-found Nike.