Daniel Snyder

Daniel Snyder is the controlling owner of the National Football League’s Washington Football Team and the founder of Snyder Communications.

Snyder was born on November 23, 1964, in Maryland. His father, Gerald, was a freelance writer, and the family lived in Silver Spring, Maryland, Henley-on-Thames, United Kingdom, and Queens, New York, before returning to Maryland, where Dan graduated from Charles W. Woodward High School. His first job was at a B. Dalton bookstore.

His first major success came after he dropped out of college to focus on business. He operated a startup company out of his parents’ bedroom that leased jets to fly college students to spring break destinations and cleared over $1 million in revenue. He built a number of other companies and learned from their successes and challenges, building a network of contacts and potential investors along the way.

Dan and Michele Snyder founded Snyder Communications in 1988 to provide marketing services to Fortune 500 companies. When the company went public in 1996, at age 32, Dan became the youngest CEO of a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Several years later, he would sell to Havas, a French advertising and marketing group, for over $2 billion. This was the largest transaction in the history of the marketing industry, and it personally earned Snyder over $300 million.

In 1999, Dan Snyder purchased the Washington Football Team from the estate of Jack Kent Cooke for $800 million. This was the most expensive transaction in sporting history, and Snyder underwent a prolonged vetting process before achieving unanimous approval from the NFL’s owners.

Since Snyder became owner, he has increased the Washington Football Team’s value to approximately $3.1 billion, making it the fifth most valuable NFL franchise and among the most valuable sports franchises in the world.

Daniel Snyder gave $1 million to aid victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks, $600,000 to victims of Hurricane Katrina, and covered shipping expenses to ensure aid reached victims of the 2004 tsunamis in Indonesia and Thailand. He used his personal plane to deliver emergency supplies to victims of Hurricane Matthew in the Bahamas and to Haiti as well.

In the Washington area, Snyder is the founder of the Washington Football Team Charitable Association and a supporter of Youth For Tomorrow, which was founded by former Washington Football Team head coach Joe Gibbs.

Snyder has also provided aid to Tribal communities through the Washington Football Team Original American Foundation, formed in 2014, and supports the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who awarded the Snyder family with the Charles B. Wang International Children’s Award that same year.

Snyder is married to Tanya Ivey, a former fashion model and spokesperson for breast cancer awareness. The family has three children and resides in Maryland.