Kevin Plank

• Born: August 13, 1972
• Place of Birth: Kensington, MD

Under Armour founder

Place of birth: Kensington, Maryland

Education: University of Maryland

Significance: Former athlete Kevin Plank founded the Under Armour brand of athletic clothing and accessories, which saw significant success into the early twenty-first century. He served as the company's CEO until 2020 and also became known for his charitable work and his association with the business community of Baltimore, Maryland. He returned as CEO in 2024.

Background

Kevin Plank was born in 1972 in Kensington, Maryland, and grew up in a middle-class household. Plank was the youngest of five boys born to William Plank, a real estate developer, who died in 1992, and Jayne Plank, who was mayor of Kensington, Maryland, from 1972 to 1984. Plank’s mother also headed the office of legislative and intergovernmental affairs in the US Department of State under both Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

Plank attended Georgetown Preparatory School, a private Jesuit school in Bethesda, Maryland, where he began playing football. Plank went on to St. John’s College High School, where he was a star on the high school football team. He graduated in 1990. He then took a postgraduate year playing football for Fork Union Military Academy in hopes of winning a football scholarship. Unable to achieve a scholarship, Plank enrolled at the University of Maryland in 1991, where he eventually became a captain of the college football team.

Early Entrepreneurship

Plank’s first business venture was a flower delivery business called Cupid’s Cup. He ran this each year on Valentine’s Day, while still in college. Plank put away $17,000 from the flower business, which eventually became seed money for Under Armour. During his football practices at the University of Maryland, Plank became sick of sweating through cotton shirts. Plank came to believe that the cotton undergarments worn by most athletes impeded performance when they became heavy and soaked with sweat. He recalls sitting in his dorm room during his senior year at the University of Maryland and drawing the first Under Armour shirt. Inspired by women’s undergarments, Plank had the idea of making athletic undershirts and other accessories using a synthetic, sweat-wicking material.

After graduating from college in 1996, Plank and his friend Kip Fulks began developing the Under Armour brand while living in a Georgetown home that was part of Plank’s deceased grandmother’s estate. Plank reportedly invested more than $40,000 of his own money to have prototypes of synthetic garments manufactured. Plank and Fulks had thirty-nine prototypes made before they reached a finished product that both felt was marketable to athletes.

In 1996, Plank and Fulks began marketing their compression shirts to college athletics teams, with Plank working as CEO and sales representative for the company. He had the company’s undergarments made in a Bellaire, Ohio, factory operated by Sal Fasciana. Plank said he nearly gave up on the idea until, in late 1996, they obtained their first major contract to supply undershirts to the Georgia Tech football program. Inspired by this success, Plank traveled to colleges around the country, where he focused on college football programs but also marketed clothing to a number of professional and college sports franchises.

Under Armour Thrives

By 1998, Under Armour had become a thriving company, with more than 20 percent growth each year since the company was founded. Plank decided to move his company to a new warehouse on Sharp Street in Baltimore, Maryland. Once the company relocated, Under Armour created a line of products for women athletes and also began manufacturing shoes, though the footwear part of Under Armour’s business was not as successful as the undergarments and basic sportswear. Under Armour also embraced the company’s new home by seeking out native Baltimore athletes, like Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, to endorse their products.

In 1999, Under Armour earned a contract with Warner Bros. Entertainment to create clothing for actors in two football films, Any Given Sunday and The Replacements. Following this partnership with Warner Bros. Entertainment, an increasing number of professional sports franchises switched from using competitors' clothing, like Nike and Reebok, to using Under Armour brand clothing for their athletes. Plank said that he received offers to purchase the company from competitors but remained confident in the company’s future. Under Armour’s profits grew rapidly, from $5 million to more than $300 million in five years.

In addition to the growth of the national brand, Plank was honored for his role in bringing business and revenue to Baltimore. In 2003 the Baltimore Business Journal named Plank the 2003 Businessperson of the Year. In 2005 Plank decided to take Under Armour public. Days before the company’s first initial public offering (IPO), Plank was offered a reported $750 million to sell his controlling interest in the company, though he refused the offer. Under Armour stock rose 94 percent during its first day of trading.

Development and Research

With the success of the IPO, Under Armour began investing in development and research. In 2006, the company started the Cupid’s Cup, an annual business contest named after Plank’s college flower delivery business. Each year, the Cupid’s Cup awarded prizes to innovators under thirty years of age who were enrolled in college and had created their own businesses. Competing companies were required to have earned at least $5,000 in revenue or to have similar development in terms of customers and/or users. Cupid’s Cup was designed to spotlight up-and-coming entrepreneurs.

In 2011 Under Armour unveiled a new Innovation Lab at the company’s Tide Point headquarters in Locust Point, Baltimore. The laboratory was established in a 140,000-square-foot warehouse purchased by Under Armour. The deal involved purchasing the entire Tide Point business park for an estimated $60.5 million. In March 2013, Under Armour launched Armour39, a fitness tracker named after the thirty-ninth prototype of the company’s first compression shirt. The tracker strapped to the user’s chest and included heart rate sensors, a Bluetooth connection, and an accelerometer. In 2013 Under Armour joined with Head Health Initiative, a partnership with the National Football League (NFL) to reduce brain injury among professional football players.

In 2014 company reports indicated that the company’s profit grew 28 percent in 2013, with an annual revenue of $3 billion. As the company’s largest shareholder, Plank had an estimated net worth of $2.75 billion in company shares in addition to more than $3 million in stock awards and compensation per year from the company. In 2015, returning to his early interest in flower delivery, Plank’s company invested $1.5 million in the UrbanStems flower delivery business that debuted on the East Coast in 2014.

Facing Challenges

Following a period of rapid growth and success, Under Armour saw notable struggles in the later 2010s. Major rivals such as Nike and Adidas presented strong competition, resulting in sales declines and turbulent stock performance beginning in late 2016. Meanwhile, Plank faced challenges regarding his public image, including some negative reports about the corporate culture at Under Armour. He also found himself caught up in political disputes. Often vocal about his conservative politics, he found himself in the media spotlight around controversial Republican president Donald Trump after joining the president's American Manufacturing Council in early 2017. Plank stepped down from the post later that year in the wake of Trump's hesitance to denounce white supremacist groups. In 2019 Plank defended Baltimore after Trump heavily criticized the city.

In October 2019, Plank announced he would be stepping down as Under Armour's CEO. He continued as brand chief and executive chair, while COO Patrik Frisk succeeded him as leader of the company, effective January 2020. Soon after that announcement, it emerged that Under Armour was under investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over its accounting practices, dating back to 2017. In July 2020, both the company and Plank himself received notices from the SEC about potential action stemming from the probe. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic also created problems for Under Armour as retail sales experienced a drastic drop-off. In 2021, Plank and Under Armour agreed to settle their case with the SEC for $9 million. In the early 2020s, Plank continued to explore and develop his interests in other industries, such as horse racing, real estate holdings, and alcohol distribution. The company, meanwhile, engaged in cost-cutting measures and dumped some expensive college clothing deals.

In February 2023, Marriott International executive Stephanie Linnartz joined the company as president and CEO. Her time in this role lasted just thirteen months, during which she vastly changed the company, including replacing the chief customer officer, chief supply chain officer, head of design, and president of the Americas team. Plank returned to lead the company in March 2024. At that time, the company's market capitalization was about $3.5 billion, down from a high of more than $10 billion.

Impact

As the founder of a highly successful and publicly visible company, Plank received various honors as a business and entrepreneurial leader. His net worth and prominent purchases made him a celebrity. A political conservative, Plank also made a political impact through large donations to Republican and conservative candidates.

Personal Life

Plank and his wife, Desiree Jacqueline Guerzon, met at the University of Maryland and married in 2003. They lived in Lutherville, Maryland, and had two children: a son, James, and a daughter, Katherine.

Bibliography

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Fagone, Jason. "Kevin Plank, the Man Under the Armour." Men’s Journal. Wenner Media, Sept. 2013. Web. 17 Mar. 2015.

Graham, Scott. "The Man Behind the ‘Armour’." Baltimore Business Journal. American City Business Journals, 29 Dec. 2003. Web. 17 Mar. 2015.

Jackson, Alexander. "Under Armour debuts ‘Innovation Lab’ at Tide Point." Baltimore Business Journal. American City Business Journals, 15 Feb. 2011. Web. 17 Mar. 2015.

Mirabella, Lorraine. “Under Armour Agrees to Pay $9 Million to Settle SEC Probe Into Accounting Practices.” Baltimore Sun, 4 May 2021, www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-under-armour-accounting-settlement-20210503-wzqklvorlvf2zjbgjjwvhwezpa-story.html. Accessed 23 Apr. 2023.

Mirabella, Lorraine. "Under Armour’s Kevin Plank Prepares for Valentine’s Day with Investment in UrbanStems." Baltimore Sun. Tribune Publishing, 10 Feb. 2015. Web. 17 Mar. 2015.

Sharrow, Ryan. "Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank’s Pay Jumps Sharply in 2014." Austin Business Journal. American City Business Journals, 16 Mar. 2015. Web. 17 Mar. 2015.

"Under Armour Founder Kevin Plank Returning as CEO." Daily Record, 13 Mar. 2024, thedailyrecord.com/2024/03/13/under-armour-founder-kevin-plank-returning-as-ceo/. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.

Valinsky, Jordan. "Under Armour Founder Kevin Plank is Stepping Down as CEO." CNN, 22 Oct. 2019, www.cnn.com/2019/10/22/business/under-armour-kevin-plank-ceo/index.html. Accessed 12 Oct. 2020.

Wilen, Holden. "Under Armour, Kevin Plank Receive SEC Enforcement Notices Related to Accounting Probe." Baltimore Business Journal, 27 July 2020, www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/news/2020/07/27/under-armour-kevin-plank-face-possible-sec-charges.html. Accessed 12 Oct. 2020.