Shahid “Shad” Khan

Owner, Jacksonville Jaguars, Jacksonville

With Jacksonville holding strong as one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities, Khan’s ambitious plans to remake the downtown give him an opportunity to shape the community for decades to come. Costing an estimated $2 billion to recast the district, the Jaguars’ “Stadium of the Future” will be the topic of public discussion for months to come as Khan negotiates with the city for its share of investment in the proposed stadium renovation. Meanwhile, Khan’s other project — a $387-million effort comprising a 176-room Four Seasons with 25 luxury condominiums, a six-story office building, retail space and a public marina — is now a year into construction. “From stadium discussions starting in 2016 to the formal process launched in July 2020 and now concluding, our objective has always been the same — lock in a promising future for the Jaguars and help our downtown become an economic engine to lift all of Jacksonville, particularly areas that have been underserved,” says Khan. He ranks 144th on the Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest people with $12.1 billion. He made his fortune with Flex-N-Gate, an auto-parts supplier that sells bumpers to major automakers and employs more than 23,000 at 75 facilities around the world. Khan bought the company just 13 years after he started working there as an engineering student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.