Josh Harris (businessman)

After graduating from Wharton in 1986, Harris worked as a financial analyst in the mergers and acquisitions department of the investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert.[3] He left after two years to attend Harvard Business School, where he graduated with a MBA as a Baker Scholar and Loeb Finance Fellow in 1990.[7][3] Earlier that year, Drexel had filed for bankruptcy during an ongoing recession, with Harris working at Blackstone Inc. for two months before leaving to establish the private equity firm Apollo Global Management with former Drexel partners Leon Black and Marc Rowan.[3][8] Under the direction of Harris, Apollo invested US$2 billion into the industrial company LyondellBasell in 2008 before selling their stake in 2013 for a profit of $9.6 billion, the largest gain on a private equity investment in history.[9][10] In 2017, Harris was asked to serve on a planned infrastructure task force for the Trump administration and met multiple times with advisor Jared Kushner. Apollo later lent $184 million to Kushner's real estate firm, Kushner Companies.[11]

In May 2021, Harris relinquished his day-to-day responsibilities at Apollo after being passed over at CEO for Marc Rowan. The position had been made vacant after Leon Black stepped down due to a scandal regarding Black allegedly paying $158 million to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in the 2010s.[12] Harris would leave the company in January 2022 after his large personal investments in sports became a source of tension within the company, with him remaining on the board of directors until his term ended that October.[13][14] In 2022, Black would include Harris in a civil conspiracy lawsuit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) act, alleging that he had formed a group within Apollo to undermine him in an attempt to tarnish his reputation after his ties to Epstein had been reported.[15] Harris would deny the claims, with federal judge Paul Engelmayer dismissing the claim for lack of evidence in June 2022.[16] In September 2022, he founded the asset management firm 26North with more than $5 billion in assets.[8][17][18]

Harris is on the board of Mount Sinai Hospital, Harvard Business School, and the Wharton School.[5][19] He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets (IACFM) of the New York Federal Reserve, and formerly served on the United States Olympic Committee and the board of Berry Global.[20][21][22] His family office, HRS Management, bought a majority stake in US Fitness, a fitness club operator, in 2018.[23] HRS Management was a major shareholder in The Hill until selling their stakes to Nexstar Media Group in 2022.[24][25] The same year, the office was a part of a joint venture with Canvas Property Group to buy more than $1 billion worth of apartments.[26]

In 2011, Harris and senior Blackstone Inc. executive David Blitzer led an investment group that purchased the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from Comcast Spectacor for US$280 million.[27][28] Other members of the group included Art Wrubel, Jason Levien, Adam Aron, Martin J. Geller, David B. Heller, James Lassiter, Marc J. Leder, Michael G. Rubin, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Erick Thohir.[29][30] In 2013, Harris and Blitzer purchased the New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League (NHL), which included the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, for over $320 million.[31] He bought a 18% stake in the Premier League's Crystal Palace F.C. in 2015. The club is run in a general partnership consisting of himself, Blitzer, and English businessman Steve Parish.[32][33]

In September 2017, Harris and Blitzer founded Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment (HBSE) to consolidate their sports ventures. In addition to the 76ers and Devils, the company also owns and operates the 76ers-affiliated Delaware Blue Coats of the NBA G League, the Devils-affiliated Utica Comets of the American Hockey League, the esports team Dignitas of New Meta Entertainment,[34][35] sports tech venture capital firm HBSE Ventures,[36] and event ticketing firm Elevate Sports Ventures.[37] In 2023, Harris, through his family office, purchased a controlling interest in Ripken Baseball, a youth baseball brand founded by Baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr., and merged it with Cooperstown All Star Village, a baseball resort in Cooperstown, New York.[38]

In 2020, Harris bought a stake of less than 5%, worth up to $140 million, in the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL).[39] He was part of an unsuccessful bid to purchase the NFL's Denver Broncos in 2022. Harris was willing to pay $5 billion if he could guarantee himself majority ownership before it was sold to a group led by Rob Walton for $4.65 billion.[40] In 2023, he led an investment group that reached an agreement to purchase the NFL's Washington Commanders for $6.05 billion, the largest sales transaction for a sports franchise in history.[41] Other partners include Blitzer, businessman and art collector Mitchell Rales, Basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Colombian-American financier Alejandro Santo Domingo, and hedge fund investor Lee Ainslie, among others.[41] The deal is expected to be ratified at a league meeting in late May.[41]

Harris Family Charitable Foundation, now known as Harris Philanthropies, was founded by Harris and his wife in 2014.[54] In 2015, he committed to donate $3.5 million over a span of five years to the Philadelphia Police Athletic League.[55] Harris has supported the Wharton School with several donations and programs, including donating $1 million to support the Penn Quakers wrestling program,[56] establishing the Harris Family Endowed Scholarship to support undergraduate students from the Washington, D.C. area,[57] and establishing the Harris Family Alternative Investments Program, which donated $10 million in February 2019.[56] In August 2020, Harris donated $2 million to The Bridgespan Group to launch a leadership program to serve Philadelphia-area nonprofit organizations.[54][58]