Stanford has hired the former CEO of Nike John Donahoe as the new Atlético director of the school, the University announced Thursday.
Donahoe, 65, will arrive at the space as a collegiate athletic director with a large strip of commercial experience, since Stanford officials saw him as a “unicorn candidate” due to their commercial ties and history in school. Stanford coveted a non -traditional candidate for paper, and Donahoe's rent offers an experienced CEO with periods in Nike, Bain & Company and Ebay. He also served as president of the PayPal Board.
It also brings Stanford's strong ties as MBA graduate in 1986. He has had two periods at the Stanford Business School Board, including the currently serving in that role.
“My North Star for 40 years has been the service leadership, and it is a great honor to be able to return to a university that I love and lead Stanford Athletics through a crucial and tumultuous moment in university sports,” Donahoe said in a statement. “Stanford has huge strengths and enormous potential in a changing environment, including being the model to achieve academic and athletic excellence at the highest levels. I cannot wait to work in association with the Stanford team to generate impulse for Stanford Athletics and guarantee the best possible experiences for our students and athletes.”
Donahoe replaces Bernard Muir, who announced in February that he would resign after serving in that role since 2012. Alden Mitchell has been the interim atlético director of the school.
The rent is from the head for Stanford, bringing someone with the high -level commercial experience of Donahoe. And it arrives at a time when the Athletics Department has had problems in its highest profile sports, since football is in the middle of four consecutive seasons and the men's basketball team has not reached the NCAA tournament since 2014.
When hiring Donahoe, Stanford points to someone who can find an innovative way to support General Manager Andrew Luck and the football program while discovering a sustainable model for the future of Stanford's Olympic sports.
“Stanford occupies a unique place in the national athletics panorama,” said University president Jonathan Levin, in a statement. “We needed a distinctive leader: someone with the vision, judgment and strategic insight for a new era of university athletics, and with a deep appreciation for the model of Stanford's academic -atleta excellence. John embodies these characteristics. We are grateful to have agreed to lead Stanford's athletics through this critical period in university sports.”
Stanford's Olympic sports remain the best in the country, since Stanford athletes or former athletes represented 39 medals in the Paris Olympic Games of 2024. If Stanford were a country, he would have tied with Canada for the 11 more medals. Stanford also won 26 of the possible 31 glasses of directors for general sports success in the university, including a 25 -year streak from 1995 to 2019.
School officials approached Donahoe in recent weeks about the position, with Levin and the former women's basketball coach Tara Vanderveer among the main recruiters. Donahoe has a long -standing relationship with both of them, since he maintained strong ties with the school throughout his career.
The sources said luck will be informed to Donahoe. Luck spent time with him in the interview process and is excited to work with him, sources said. It is also a change of the previous structure, since after the hiring of LUCK, it had been scheduled to inform Levin.
“I am absolutely excited that John Donahoe was one like our next athletic director,” Luck said in a statement. “He brings an incomparable experience and elite leadership to our Athletics Department in a moment of opportunity and change. I could not be more excited to associate and learn from it.”
Stanford is ready to start a football season in which he is chosen to finish the last one at the AC of 17 teams. The former NFL coach Frank Reich, is the interim coach, and both parties have made it clear that this is a definitive provisional situation and that it will not return after the 2025 season.
