Nike Renames Beaverton Headquarters in Honor of Co-founder Phil Knight

Nike is renaming its world headquarters in Beaverton, Ore. in honor of its co-founder and first employee Phil Knight.

Now known as the Philip H. Knight Campus (PHK), the company said Tuesday that the renamed 400-acre property will serve as a tribute to Knight’s ongoing legacy, as well as a permanent reminder of the founder’s mentality that Nike employees are encouraged to bring to work every day.

Beyond a dedication, the new name “represents a living expression of Nike’s roots and a powerful reflection of Knight’s enduring spirit: restless, bold and forever believing in what’s possible,” the Swoosh said in a statement.

Elliott Hill, president and chief executive officer of Nike, said in an all-staff email to mark his one-year anniversary in the role that this move is “more than a name change.”

“It’s a tribute to the man whose vision created a global movement,” Hill wrote. “And it’s a reminder – to every one of us who will walk these paths and run these fields – of what can happen when belief meets action.”

The company plans to celebrate the name change with an event honoring Knight in spring 2026.

Drawing inspiration from architectural language traditional to college campuses, Knight planned the original headquarters to include common community buildings, natural spaces, recreation facilities and walking trails.

The first stage of the campus, dedicated in October 1990, united Nike employees – who previously had been scattered across a couple dozen buildings throughout Portland, Oregon – into six buildings that took the names of elite athletes, including Joan Benoit Samuelson, Michael Jordan, John McEnroe, Steve Prefontaine and Mike Schmidt.

Nike’s explosive growth in the 1990s, and the hiring spike that ensued, prompted an expansion that roughly doubled the size of the campus, with new buildings named after Nike athletes such as Ken Griffey Jr., Mia Hamm, Jerry Rice and Pete Sampras.

The most recent additions to the campus are the LeBron James Innovation Center, which opened in 2021 and is home to the Nike Sport Research Lab, and the 1-million-square-foot Serena Williams Building, which opened in 2022 as Nike’s biggest investment in design and creativity.

Today the campus encompasses more than 40 buildings. The company’s global footprint also includes its European headquarters in Hilversum, Netherlands (opened in 1999); Greater China headquarters in Shanghai (2013); and Converse world headquarters in Boston (2015).