Ben Navarro | |
---|---|
Born | Benjamin W. Navarro 1962or1963(age 60–61) |
Education | University of Rhode Island (1984) |
Occupation | Businessman |
Known for | Founder and CEO, Sherman Financial Group |
Spouse | Kelly Navarro |
Children | 4, including Emma Navarro |
Parent | Frank Navarro |
Benjamin W. Navarro (born 1962 or 1963) is an American billionaire businessman, the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Sherman Financial Group, LLC, which owns Credit One Bank. He is the 2103rd richest person in the world, with a net worth of $1.5 billion according to Forbes . [1]
Navarro was born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, one of eight children of Frank Navarro, a college football coach for Williams College who posed for the Norman Rockwell painting The Recruit. He grew up in Westerly and Chariho, Rhode Island. He is of Italian descent through his father. He lived in Princeton, New Jersey and graduated from Princeton High School, when his father was coaching the Princeton University football team. [2] [3] [4] [5]
Navarro earned a bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Rhode Island in 1984. [6]
Navarro worked for Goldman Sachs for three years, before joining Citigroup in 1988, rising to vice president and co-head of mortgage sales and trading. [7]
He left Citigroup in 1997, and in 1998 founded Sherman Financial Group, a global diversified investment services company. [7] In 2005, Sherman bought a small bank and renamed it Credit One Bank, now a major credit card issuer focused on subprime borrowers. [8]
In 2021, Navarro founded Beemok Hospitality Collection, a hospitality company consisting of hotel, restaurant, and entertainment properties in the Southeast. It acquired Charleston Place, the largest hotel in Charleston at 434 rooms, in October 2021. [9]
Navarro owns the Live To Play Tennis Club in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, which has hosted three USTA national junior tennis championships, and six International Tennis Federation women's pro circuit tournaments. [10] [11]
In 2018, he was a bidder for the Carolina Panthers NFL sports franchise. He lost to David Tepper. [3]
In September 2018, he bought Charleston Tennis LLC, owners of the Charleston Open women's tennis event, through his company Beemok Sports LLC.
In 2022, Navarro funded extensive renovations to Credit One Stadium, a 20-year-old city-owned facility, as a gift to the City of Charleston. The stadium re-opened on April 2, 2022, for the 50th annual Credit One Charleston Open, the largest women's only tennis event in North America. [12]
Also in 2022, Navarro's Beemok Sports bought the rights to the Western & Southern Open. The event features men’s and women’s singles tournaments on the ATP and WTA tour. In 2022, 19 of the top 20 players in the world competed in the Western & Southern Open, which is one of nine tennis events in the world designated as a top-tier tournament for both male and female players. [13] [14]
Ben Navarro is married to Kelly; they have four children and live in Charleston, South Carolina. [3] Their daughter, Emma Navarro played tennis for the University of Virginia. Another daughter, Meggie currently plays tennis there. Emma has a career high WTA singles ranking of No. 20, achieved on March 18, 2024, and won the NCAA division 1 women's singles title on May 28, 2021 as a freshman. [7]
In 2021, Ben Navarro contributed $500,000 to a political action committee (PAC) supporting Tim Scott. [15] In 2023, he contributed $5 million to the PAC. [16]
Navarro's philanthropic ventures are focused on education and mental wellness. In 2008, he founded Meeting Street Schools, a South Carolina-based network of one private and three public elementary and middle schools serving an entirely under-resourced demographic. Meeting Street Schools were founded upon the belief that all children deserve an excellent education regardless of their geographic or socioeconomic circumstances and now serve over 1,800 students. [17]
In December 2020, Navarro announced the Meeting Street Scholarship Fund wherein he pledged to supplement the cost of higher education for any Charleston County high school students who also qualified for the Pell grant and the State's LIFE scholarship, ensuring college opportunities for hundreds of South Carolina high school graduates each year. [18] [19] Since inception, the Meeting Street Scholarship Fund has expanded to an additional 10 South Carolina counties and has awarded $20 million in scholarship dollars to over 500 students. In 2023, the Meeting Street Scholarship Fund announced its aim to expand the initiative to all 46 South Carolina counties which would impact over 2,000 students and amount to $42 million in scholarship dollars. [20]
In 2020, Navarro founded Modern Minds in partnership with the Medical University of South Carolina. It is a new type of mental wellness center that uses holistic health strategies to help adults living with anxiety or depression. [21]
Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park is a baseball stadium located in Charleston, South Carolina. The stadium is named after Charleston's longest-serving mayor, Joseph P. Riley Jr., who was instrumental in its construction. The stadium replaced College Park. It was built in 1997 and seats 6,000 people.
Daniel Island, South Carolina is a 4,000-acre (16 km2) island located in the city of Charleston, South Carolina, United States. Named after its former inhabitant, the colonial governor of the Carolinas, Robert Daniell, the island is located in Berkeley County and situated between the Cooper and Wando Rivers. As of July 2012 it is being developed as a master-planned community complete with residential neighborhoods, parks, trails, recreational amenities and a downtown that is home to shops, restaurants, schools, churches and offices for businesses.
The Charleston Open, currently sponsored by Credit One, is a WTA Tour-affiliated professional tennis tournament for women, held every year since 1973. It is the oldest professional all-women's tournament in America with a $888,636 purse. The tournament celebrated 50 years in 2022 at the newly renovated Credit One Stadium located in Charleston, South Carolina.
The Charleston School of Law is a private for-profit law school in Charleston, South Carolina. It was established in 2003 and accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA) in August 2011. The school was founded upon a principle of promoting public service by its students and graduates; each student must perform at least 50 hours of public service before graduation. According to the school's 2021 ABA-required disclosures, 85% of the Class of 2017 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment nine months after graduation.
David Alan Tepper is an American billionaire hedge fund manager. He is the owner of the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League (NFL) and Charlotte FC in Major League Soccer (MLS). Tepper is the founder and president of Appaloosa Management, a global hedge fund based in Miami Beach, Florida.
Bishop England High School is a diocesan Roman Catholic four-year high school in Charleston, South Carolina, United States. It was located on Calhoun Street in downtown Charleston until it moved to a newly constructed 40-acre campus located on Daniel Island in 1998. With an enrollment of 730, Bishop England is the largest private high school in the state of South Carolina. The school was founded in 1915 and was named after John England, the first bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston.
Credit One Stadium is a tennis stadium located within the Family Circle Tennis Center tennis complex on Daniel Island in Charleston, South Carolina. Built in 2001, the Family Circle Tennis Center has 17 courts, including the 10,200-seat main stadium, named the Credit One Stadium after Credit One Bank became the new title sponsor in 2021. Since 2001, it has hosted the WTA Tour's Charleston Open, a WTA 500 tournament, and is the only facility to host an event on the WTA Tour that is played on green Har-Tru clay courts.
Frank F. Navarro was an American college football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Williams College from 1963 to 1967, Columbia University from 1968 to 1973, Wabash College from 1974 to 1977, and Princeton University from 1978 to 1984, compiling a career head coaching record of 99–99–6. Navarro graduated in 1953 from the University of Maryland, College Park, where he played on the Maryland Terrapins football as a guard under head coach, Jim Tatum. Navarro and the 1951 Maryland Terrapins football team advanced to the 1952 Sugar Bowl, where they beat Tennessee, and were recognized as a national champion by several selections.
Shelby Nicole Rogers is an American professional tennis player. She has career-high WTA rankings of world No. 30 in singles, achieved August 2022, and No. 40 in doubles, achieved February 2022, and has won six singles and two doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit. She won the girls' national championship at 17. Her best results as a professional came at the 2016 French Open and the 2020 US Open where she reached the quarterfinals.
The Citadel Bulldogs wrestling team represents The Citadel of Charleston, South Carolina. The squad is led by head coach Ryan LeBlanc, and assistant coach Luke Welch. The Bulldogs are members of the Southern Conference and have won conference championships in 1967 and 2004.
Albert Wheeler Todd was an architect in Charleston, South Carolina. He is known for his neoclassical architecture, the design on his own home and of a home for Tristram Hyde. Todd was the senior partner at the firm of Todd & Benson which became Todd, Simons & Todd. Joseph F. Leitner worked with him. Todd also served in the legislature from 1910 until 1924 and was a State Senator.
The 2013–14 The Citadel Bulldogs basketball team represented The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina in the 2013–14 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The Bulldogs were led by fourth year head coach Chuck Driesell and played their home games at McAlister Field House. They played a member of the Southern Conference. They finished the season 7–26, 2–14 in SoCon play to finish in last place. They advanced to the quarterfinals of the SoCon tournament where they lost to Wofford.
The 2014–15 The Citadel Bulldogs basketball team represented The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina in the 2014–15 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The Bulldogs were led by fifth year head coach Chuck Driesell and played their home games at McAlister Field House. They played a member of the Southern Conference, as they have since 1936–37. They finished the season 11–19, 6–12 in SoCon play to finish in a three-way tie for seventh place. They lost in the first round of the SoCon tournament to Furman. Driesell was not retained after the season.
The 2016 The Citadel Bulldogs football team represented The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina in the 2016 NCAA Division I FCS football season. The Bulldogs were led by first-year head coach Brent Thompson and played their home games at Johnson Hagood Stadium. They played as members of the Southern Conference, as they have since 1936.
The 2016–17 The Citadel Bulldogs basketball team represented The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina in the 2016–17 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The Bulldogs were led by second-year head coach Duggar Baucom and played their home games at McAlister Field House in Charleston, South Carolina. They played as a member of the Southern Conference (SoCon), as they have since 1936–37. They finished the season 12–21, 4–14 in SoCon play, to finish in a tie for eighth place. They defeated Western Carolina in the first round of the SoCon tournament to advance to the quarterfinals where they lost to UNC Greensboro.
The Citadel Bulldogs volleyball team represents The Citadel in the sport of indoor volleyball. The Bulldogs compete in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) and the Southern Conference (SoCon), and play their home matches in McAlister Field House on the school's Charleston, South Carolina campus. They are currently led by head coach Dave Zelenock, who in 2018 led his first season.
Emma Navarro is an American professional tennis player. Navarro has a career-high singles ranking of world No. 20 by the WTA, achieved March 2024, and a doubles ranking of No. 231, reached on January 29, 2024. She played college tennis at Virginia and won the NCAA Singles Championship in 2021. She won her first WTA Tour title at the 2024 Hobart International.
The 2020 Credit One Bank Invitational was a women's tennis event on the 2020 WTA Tour. Originally scheduled as the Volvo Cars Open between April 6 – 12, 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced a postponement and a change to the event by Charleston Tennis, which owns the event.
The 2022 Charleston Open was a women's professional tennis tournament played on outdoor clay courts at the Family Circle Tennis Center on Daniel Island in Charleston, South Carolina. It was the 50th edition of the tournament on the WTA Tour and was classified as a WTA 500 tournament on the 2022 WTA Tour. It was the only event of the clay court season played on green clay.
Peter Ayers is an American tennis coach and former player. He played college tennis for the Duke Blue Devils. He currently coaches Emma Navarro.