Phil Knight Bio
Philip Hampson Knight, widely known as Phil Knight, is an American billionaire businessman and the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Nike, Inc., one of the world’s largest sportswear and equipment companies. A native of Portland, Oregon, Knight built Nike from a small import venture into a global brand recognized by its Swoosh logo and its partnerships with leading athletes around the world. Beyond Nike, Knight owns the stop-motion animation studio Laika and has built a reputation as one of the most generous philanthropists in the Pacific Northwest, with major gifts to Stanford University, the University of Oregon, and Oregon Health and Science University. As of October 2025, Forbes estimated his net worth at roughly US$35.4 billion.
Knight graduated from the University of Oregon, where he ran track under coach Bill Bowerman, and later earned an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. He co-founded Blue Ribbon Sports with Bowerman in 1964, and that company was renamed Nike in 1971. After stepping down as chairman in 2016, Knight has remained active in philanthropy, politics, and his investments in sports and entertainment.
Early Life and Background
Philip Hampson Knight was born on February 24, 1938, in Portland, Oregon, the son of William W. Knight, a lawyer turned newspaper publisher, and Lota Cloy (née Hatfield) Knight. He grew up in the Eastmoreland neighborhood of Portland and attended Cleveland High School. According to published accounts, when his father refused to give him a summer job at the family newspaper, the Oregon Journal, Knight went to work for the rival Oregonian, where he worked an early shift tabulating sports scores and ran home seven miles every morning, an early sign of the discipline that would shape his later career.
Knight continued his education at the University of Oregon in Eugene, where he ran middle-distance for the Oregon track and field program, worked as a sports reporter for the Oregon Daily Emerald, and joined the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. He earned a B.B.A. in just three years, completing his degree in 1959, and was designated a Distinguished Military Graduate when he received his Army Reserve Commission the same year. As a runner, his personal best in the mile was 4 minutes, 13 seconds, and he earned varsity letters in 1957, 1958, and 1959.
Path to Building Nike
Immediately after college, Knight enlisted in the Army, serving one year on active duty and seven years in the Army Reserve. He then enrolled at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where for a small business class he wrote a paper asking whether Japanese sports shoes could do to German sports shoes what Japanese cameras had done to German cameras. The paper sketched out the import-based business model that would later become Blue Ribbon Sports. He graduated with his MBA in 1962.
After Stanford, Knight traveled around the world and stopped in Kobe, Japan, in November 1962, where he discovered Onitsuka Tiger running shoes, manufactured by what is now known as Asics. Impressed by the quality and price, he secured distribution rights for the western United States. While waiting for his first samples, he took a job as an accountant in Portland. He mailed two pairs of Tigers to his former coach Bill Bowerman at the University of Oregon, hoping for both a sale and an endorsement. Bowerman ordered the shoes and offered to become a partner, and the two men agreed to a handshake deal on January 25, 1964, the official start of Blue Ribbon Sports.
Phil Knight Career
Early Career (1964–1971)
Knight’s first sales of Tiger running shoes were made out of a green Plymouth Valiant at track meets across the Pacific Northwest, even as he continued to work as a Certified Public Accountant, first with Coopers and Lybrand and then Price Waterhouse. He later became an accounting professor at Portland State University, a position that would later connect him to his future wife. By 1969, the early success of the shoe business allowed him to leave his accounting job and work full-time for Blue Ribbon Sports.
The company grew steadily, and in 1971 employee Jeff Johnson suggested renaming the firm Nike, after the Greek winged goddess of victory. The Swoosh logo was commissioned that same year from graphic design student Carolyn Davidson for $35, and Knight later acknowledged that the mark would grow on him. In 1983, Davidson received Nike stock and a gold Swoosh ring in recognition of her contribution to the brand.
Nike Breakthrough and Growth (1971–2004)
Under Knight’s leadership, Nike grew from a regional running-shoe distributor into a global athletic brand. He developed personal relationships with some of the most recognizable athletes in the world, including Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, deals that helped transform Nike into a cultural icon as well as a sportswear company. The 1985 signing of Michael Jordan, later dramatized in the 2023 film Air, in which Ben Affleck portrayed Knight, remains one of the most famous endorsement stories in business history.
Knight served as Nike’s chief executive and chairman through decades of expansion, overseeing the launch of major product lines and the company’s evolution into a publicly traded powerhouse. He resigned as CEO on November 18, 2004, several months after the death of his son Matthew, but retained the role of chairman of the board. William Perez, former CEO of S.C. Johnson and Son, succeeded him as CEO, and was later replaced by Mark Parker in 2006.
Post-CEO Era (2004–Present)
In June 2015, Knight and Nike announced that he would step down as chairman, with Mark Parker succeeding him. His retirement from the Nike board took effect at the end of June 2016. In 2016, Knight published his memoir, Shoe Dog, released on April 26 by Simon and Schuster, which reached fifth on The New York Times Best Seller list for business books in July 2018.
Beyond Nike, Knight has continued to invest in sports and storytelling. In 1998, he took a 15 percent stake in Will Vinton Studios, eventually purchasing the troubled company and rebranding it as Laika. He has invested roughly $180 million into the stop-motion animation studio, which released its first feature film, Coraline, in 2009, and is now run by his son Travis Knight as president and CEO. Knight also co-founded the running team Athletics West in 1977 with Bowerman and Geoff Hollister.
Notable Events and Milestones
Among Knight’s most significant milestones are the 1964 handshake deal that created Blue Ribbon Sports, the 1971 launch of the Nike brand and Swoosh logo, the 1985 partnership with Michael Jordan, and his transition from CEO in 2004 and from chairman in 2016. In 2012, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor, and in 2024 he received the World Athletics President’s Award.
Phil Knight Family
Family Background and Lineage
Knight was born into a Portland publishing family headed by his father, William W. Knight, a lawyer turned newspaper publisher, and his mother, Lota Cloy (née Hatfield) Knight. The family’s newspaper background and the competitive streak Knight showed as a youth, including running seven miles home from his early-morning job at the Oregonian, helped shape the discipline that later defined his business career.
Personal Life
Knight met his wife, Penelope “Penny” Parks, while he was her professor at Portland State University, and they married on September 13, 1968. The couple has two sons, Matthew and Travis. Matthew Knight died in 2004 in a scuba-diving accident in El Salvador, and the University of Oregon’s Matthew Knight Arena, opened in 2011, was later named in his honor. Travis Knight runs the Laika animation studio, with Phil Knight serving as chairman. The family resides in a rural area outside Hillsboro, Oregon, and also owns a home in La Quinta, California.
Phil Knight Philanthropy and Accolades
Knight is one of the most prolific donors in American higher education and health care. In 2006 he donated US$105 million to the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and in 2016 he contributed $400 million to start the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program. To the University of Oregon, his alma mater, he has given more than $1 billion, funding the Knight Library, the Knight Law Center, the Matthew Knight Arena, the Marcus Mariota Sports Performance Center, and renovations at Hayward Field. In October 2008, he and Penny pledged $100 million to the OHSU Cancer Institute, which was renamed the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute in their honor. In 2013, he pledged $500 million to OHSU if the institution could match it, a goal it met in 2015. In 2025, the Knights pledged an additional $2 billion to the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, bringing their cumulative giving to Oregon Health and Science University to about $2.7 billion. In December 2025, the Chronicle of Philanthropy named him the top charitable donor of the year, with $2 billion in giving.
Knight’s honors include the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1989, induction into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 2000, election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015, and the World Athletics President’s Award in 2024. He has also been an active political donor, supporting a mix of Republican and Democratic candidates in Oregon, including large contributions to Chris Dudley, Knute Buehler, Betsy Johnson, and Christine Drazan.