Penny Knight: Inside the Life of Phil Knight’s Wife

Penny Knight is the wife of Phil Knight. Penny Knight’s husband is an American billionaire business magnate who is popular as the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Nike, Inc., a global sports equipment and apparel company. He was previously its chairman and CEO. In 2016, he retired from his position at the company. However, according to People, he owns most of the company and has established a limited liability company called Swoosh to hold his Nike shares and $13.9 billion worth of Nike stock.

Penny Knight: Bio Summary

Who is Phil Knight’s wife?

Penny Knight is the wife of Nike founder Phil Knight. Though born in the United States of America, there isn’t much information available regarding her early age, parents, and close relatives. Penny came into the limelight after her marriage to the business magnate.

How did Phil Knight and his wife Penny Knight meet?

According to sources the couple while he was working at Portland State University. At the early stage of the company, Knight was distributing shoes from his father’s basement, selling them out of the back of his car at local and regional track meets. Though the business was growing but not enough for Knight to give up his ‘day job’. He picked up accounting jobs to provide for himself while building the company. Knight was teaching accounting at Portland State University where he met his future wife Penny. 

The couple tied the knot on September 13, 1968, in a beautiful wedding ceremony in the presence of their friends, families, and loved ones.  The following year the company was solid enough for Knight to work full-time for the company he had co-founded with Bill Bowerman five years earlier.

Phil Knight and his wife Penny Knight lost a son

Phil Knight and his wife Penny started their marriage on a good note, their marriage was blessed with three children-  Christina Knight, Travis Knight, and Matthew Knight. The Billionaire philanthropist and his wife are worth more than $29 billion, according to Forbes magazine, but wealth did not spare them from tragedy. Their son Matthew Knight died in a scuba diving accident in 2004 at age 34.

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While talking to USA TODAY Sports, the Nike Founder got emotional about the death of his son. “I got something like 2,500 letters, emails, cards from all over,’’ Knight told USA TODAY “But the best letter I got was from a guy named Gordy Crawford, who was probably the most respected analyst at the time on Wall Street.” In the letter to Knight, Crawford wrote that he locked up his desk on Wall Street and did not return to work for six months.

“It was really helpful in the sense that I kind of wanted to go to work and I kind of wanted to interact with people, but I couldn’t function,’’ Penny Knight’s husband told USA TODAY Sports according to Burlingtonfreepress‘ report. “And I said, ‘Well, that’s normal.’ It really did take me about six months to function again. And it’s something a parent never gets over. They say,  ‘When do you get over it?’ “You never get over it. Ever.”

Penny Knight has not revealed any official statement about the passing of her son, However, we believe she is with her husband on his statements- “it’s something a parent never gets over“. Their son Travis Knight now runs the Laika animation studio. Phil Knight serves as chairman.

Phil Knight and his wife are philanthropists

In 2022, Stanford News reported Phil and Penny Knight launched a scientific endeavor to combat neurodegeneration. The new initiative on brain resilience will study the causes of cognitive decline and what may be done to prevent, delay, or reverse the decline – and what goes right for those who keep their cognitive abilities intact.

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“As Phil and I get older, we are seeing the devastating impact of neurodegeneration on our friends and loved ones,” Penny Knight revealed at the Launch. “We are calling it the ‘Initiative for Brain Resilience’ because we want to focus on the positive outcomes this important research may yield – healthy aging and the possibility of helping all people live fuller, more vibrant lives late into life. We are excited to invest behind our belief that Stanford is the place to make this happen, and we feel privileged to have the opportunity to do so.”

The Nike, Inc. co-founder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny, received the 2020 AACI Champion for Cures Award, in recognition of their transformational philanthropy that advances the shared vision of a future without cancer. The couple demonstrated their commitment to the cancer community for over a decade, beginning with a $100 million donation in 2008 that was used to recruit the best and brightest researchers to the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU).

Where is Phil Knight’s wife now?

Knight and his wife Penny Knight have been married for more than five decades and they are still keeping their vows. They own a home in La Quinta, California. They also reside in a rural area outside Hillsboro, Oregon, and own a personal flight hangar along with two private jets at the Hillsboro Airport per Oregonlive. The Knights have seven grandchildren.