Mannie Jackson

As Owner and Chairman of the Harlem Globetrotters, Mannie Jackson has achieved a dramatic and extraordinary corporate turnaround. A former Globetrotter player himself, Jackson revived the near-bankrupt organization into one of the most admired and publicized teams in the world, while increasing revenue five-fold and rebuilding the fan base to record levels. The team's resurrection was not only in the financial arena. They will have confirmed their return as one of the best and most influential basketball teams in the world, when Jackson and the Globetrotters become will only the fifth team to be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in September of 2002.

Jackson also stepped into the history books when he purchased the team in 1993, as the first African-American to own a major international sports and entertainment organization. His unwavering belief in Brand Management and the Harlem Globetrotters led him to orchestrate the unprecedented resurgence of the organization, tripling its revenue in just three years and quadrupling in size in five. Jackson has also amassed an impressive list of national sponsors, expanded countries visited to 117 with attendance of two million annually, and garnered year 2000 Sports Q ratings as the most liked and recognized team in the world.

Within the past five years, the company secured Burger King as the title sponsor of the world tour and partnered with FUBU to create a collection of clothes based on the Globetrotters and to become the team's official uniform outfitter. Additionally, the Globetrotters have created its own merchandising and licensing company and landed major sponsorship and promotion agreements valued at over $100 million.

Jackson has served on the Board of Directors of five Fortune 500 companies and sits on the Board of Governors for the American Red Cross. He is a director and member of the nominating committee of the Basketball Hall of Fame and was among 12 distinguished nominees for the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Award for Human Rights in recognition of his work in South Africa.

Championing social and economic causes also commands much of Jackson’s interest. He is a founding member and former president of the Executive Leadership Council, providing African-American executives with a network and leadership forum to promote excellence in business, economic and public policies. In the spring of 2003, Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, the nation’s oldest historical black college, founded in 1854, recently recognized Jackson with an honorary doctorate degree in Humane Letters for his work within the business community. The National Conference of Community and Justice’s (NCCJ) Arizona region honored Jackson with the 50th Annual Humanitarian of the Year Award in 2002. Later that year, the Rainbow/Push Coalition awarded Jackson the prestigious Effa Manley Sports Executive of the Year Award, for his remarkable turnaround of the Globetrotter organization.

Jackson's future plans include a vision of building a $250 million product business through the internet, alliances and in arenas, a Broadway musical, another full-length feature film on the Globetrotters and attaining his goal of returning the team to its roots as one of the top professional basketball teams in the world.

Prior to taking the reins of the Globetrotters, Jackson served as President and General Manager of Honeywell's Telecommunications Business before retiring as a Corporate Officer and a Senior Vice President of Honeywell, Inc. Serving on numerous governmental and charitable advisory boards, Jackson has been recognized in various prominent financial publications throughout his career, including being named one of the nation's 30 Most Powerful and Influential Black Corporate Executives; one of the nation's top 50 corporate strategists and one of the 20 African-American High Net Worth Entrepreneurs. In the spring of 2001, "Harvard Business Review" published a first-person account of Jackson's business principles that turned the Globetrotters into a market leader and the most renowned team in the world.

As a socially conscious international businessman and entrepreneur, the Harlem Globetrotters are the perfect fit. As owner, Jackson set forth to maintain the Harlem Globetrotters reputation as "Ambassadors of Goodwill." Since 1993, the Globetrotters charitable contributions have totaled more than $10 million. In the fall of 1997, Jackson announced a family endowment of $100,000 to the Lincoln School Alumni Foundation of Edwardsville, helping provide youth with college scholarships and pledged $250,000 to the Globetrotters Alumni Association. The NCCJ, recently named the Harlem Globetrotters Scholarship Fund, awarded to Arizona youth, allowing them to participate in the NCCJ's leadership program, Anytown USA.

Born in a railway boxcar in Illmo, Mo., Jackson grew up in Edwardsville, Ill., earning the title of Illinois' "Mr. Basketball," and attended the University of Illinois, becoming the first African-American All-American and captain of the Illini basketball team. He is also a charter member of the Illinois Basketball Hall of Fame. Jackson resides in Phoenix with his wife, Cathy, and two daughters, Cassandra and Candace.