The Arizona Coyotes Hockey Team Gets First Latino President
written by: Elsa cavazos
Hockey used to not be a huge part of Xavier Gutierrez’s life but now it revolves around it. Gutierrez has managed to become a successful businessman since he started school and hockey required him to use a majority of his attained skills. But, Gutierrez worked hard to get to where he is today and has had a long journey which is impressive to follow.
He was born in Guadalajara, Mexico and came to the United States as a toddler with his family. They first moved to L.A. and then grew up in San Jose where he started second grade. He is the oldest of four and has two sisters and one brother.
“Education was always very valued in my household. My parents did not go to college, but it was something they emphasized for my sisters and my brother. It was the pathway for the professional success I have been able to enjoy,” Gutierrez said.
“I had the great fortune of going to the oldest high school in california which was an all boys high school. That was very formative, I was able to not only get a wonderful education but a great personal development experience. I had classmates all the way up from San Francisco down to Morgan Hill. The area is about a 145 mile radius, there was a train stop right in front of my high school,” he said.
Gutierrez was very involved in school and played a lot of sports. He considered it to be important to his own development experience to be exposed to people from different socioeconomic backgrounds.
“From there I had the fortune of going to Harvard, I went to Harvard for undergrad and quite frankly I wanted to be an elected official. A dear friend of mine, Fidel Vargas who now runs the Hispanic Scholarship fund, I was his first intern. After that experience, we became incredibly good friends and he really pushed me to go into the investment world, the capital world,” Gutierrez said. “Basically what we really needed were individuals that were talented and hardworking who understood how to read capital. I went to New York after college, I was a financial analyst with the National Football League. It was kind of a unique opportunity, I never thought I'd be in sports,” he said.
Gutierrez then returned to the bay area and went to Stanford, where he met good friends who would introduce him to the business world.
“Some folks noticed my roommates and my very good friend Jose Feliciano who is the founder of clearlake capital group. We talked a lot about things that now have incredible amounts of success,” he said.
Later on he went to a law firm as a research associate in early 2002 and moved to Los Angeles with a business plan in mind.
“I wanted to bring capital to the urban communities like the one where I grew up in. I became a partner at a real estate private equity firm, I had three partners in New York and we created private equities and had quite a bit of success. I was there for eight years,” Gutierrez said.
Then in 2010 he met Alex Meruelo and that is where his hockey story starts. “He was very focused on throwing his platform and asked me to join him and I led the holding company and I was also in charge of the investment affiliates.
It was a fantastic experience,” he said. But Gutierrez wanted to return to the investment world.
“Meruelo and I are still partners, we own the largest Latino-owned bank in California. When I left, it was very amicable. He is my friend and business partner. Then I went to become a partner with Jose, and I was there for three years and then Alex decided to buy the Arizona Coyotes becoming the first latino owner,” Gutierrez said.
“In the early part of 2020 he reached out and was really focused on me taking on this role. I think the thing that was the compelling argument was that sports have a unique voice to impact people's lives in a way that no other industry has,” he said.
This new opportunity allowed him to learn more about what the consumer likes in sports and what the industry is all about.
“I often use the Wayne Gretzky quote, this great hockey player, ‘going to where the puck is going’. All of that resonated with me but really the impact of sports. That is why I am here, I am the first latino president and CEO of NHL and I am the second president of a sports franchise in North America history,” he said. Because of COVID-19 it has been a challenge but Gutierrez assures his team has a vision and a plan.
“I never really thought I would work in sports, I thought at some point I’d be a part of an ownership because I am a sports fan but never,” he said.
“I think they think I'm the first former private equity executive to be leading a sports franchise. I don't believe I'll be the last one. Due to the prominence and prevalence of private equity funds and institutions going into sports,” Gutierrez said.
He is certainly transparent when it comes to being new to o hockey but Gutierrez is not new to business.
“This is business. It's a high profile business because everything we do it has a lot of stakeholders that are very passionate about what we do, whether they are fans, elected officials, community leaders, non-profit partners, what I'm bringing to the table is 25 years of being in business, investment and finance,” he said.
Gutierrez added the Arizona Coyotes are at the forefront of trying to focus on three things, impact, inclusion and innovation.
“People ask me all the time, do latinos actually like hockey and I always answer with a couple of things. I have friends who have never thought about hockey as their sport who are now hockey fans. I have three nephews whose first sport was hockey. If you go after youth in Southern California, you are tapping into latinos. It is a market that is going into non traditional hockey.
It is a sport very much aligned with what latinos like, very family oriented experience,” he said.
“There might be fights on the ice but there aren't fights on the stands. It is something you can share with multiple generations. People remember their first hockey game, it's fast, nonstop action, you can't take your eyes off the game, you can see a puck fly into the face of a player.
The younger cohort, the social media age, this is perfect for it. A lot of things you can share and you can comment on. We are going to be authentic and innovative, I am hoping we create Coyotes fans, make it a personal journey,” he said.
Gutierrez ended his conversation making note of what is important when being a team leader, making sure inclusion and diversity are top priorities.
“We need to have diverse voices at the table to have success, and when you look at some of these places these hockey teams are located like Dallas and Chicago, how can you not have representatives of those communities within your organization in order to truly capture that,” he said.
“I am very focused on that, talent doesn't have a color, a gender, ethnicity. That is what we want, we want to create opportunity”.