David Stern

David Stern leads a league that is a model for professional sports in league operations, public service, global marketing and digital technology.

"Mr. Stern was unanimously elected as the NBA’s fourth commissioner and began his tenure on February 1, 1984. Since then, the NBA has added seven franchises; enjoyed a fifteen-fold increase in revenues; expanded its national television exposure dramatically; and launched the Women’s National Basketball Association and the NBA Development League. Interest generated by the league’s growing international initiatives has led to the televising of NBA games in 215 countries in 43 languages. NBA TV, the league’s 24-hour television network which launched in 1999, is available in 73 countries. The leagues’ Web sites, NBA.com, WNBA.com and NBADLEAGUE.com, attract more than three million visitors a day, with more than half of them coming from outside the U.S.

"Mr. Stern began his association with the NBA in 1966 as outside counsel, joined the NBA in 1978 as General Counsel and became the league’s Executive Vice President in 1980. During those years, he had a hand in virtually every matter that would shape the league, including the landmark 1976 settlement between the NBA and its players leading to free agency; the collective bargaining agreement that introduced the salary cap and revenue sharing; professional sports’ first anti-drug agreement; and the creation of NBA Entertainment, a marketing, television and multi-media production company that has been telling the NBA story in award-winning fashion for two decades...

"Mr. Stern is the chair emeritus of the Trustees of Columbia University and serves or has served on the boards of Beth Israel Medical Center, the Rutgers University Foundation, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday Commission, the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund, the Museum of Television and Radio, and Jazz At Lincoln Center. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. A native of New York City, Mr. Stern is a graduate of Rutgers University and Columbia Law School. He is married to Dianne Bock Stern, and they are the parents of two adult sons."

• Advisory Board, Global Business Coalition