Leadership and passion
For most of his life, Anthony has been driven by two words: leadership and passion. Together with his drive, dedication to academics, and competitive spirit, his passion for athletics ultimately led to unique opportunities playing collegiate sports. Consequently, Anthony chose West Point in order to play college football at the highest level and build a leadership foundation that would serve him throughout his life and career.
From West Point to Wall Street
Anthony thrived at West Point—fueled by the leadership and inspiration of others—both in the classroom and on the football field. He was a three-year letterman, earned All East Linebacker and Academic All American titles, and received the Toyota Leadership Award in the 1990 Army-Navy Game. He went on to lead the team with 129 tackles and still ranks in the top 15 all-time Army single season tackles, plus ranked third in the record books for caused fumbles in a season—including a single game high of 24 tackles in a win against Vanderbilt. Anthony was also a member of the team that won the 1988 Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy, and played in the 1988 Sun Bowl versus Alabama. Most notably, they beat Navy three times in four years. Graduating as the top-ranked mechanical engineer in West Point’s Class of 1991, Anthony served four years in the US Army. During his service, he earned the coveted Army Ranger Tab and achieved the rank of Captain.
After the military, Anthony joined Kraft Foods as a brand manager, and went on to earn his MBA at the Wharton School of Business. While at business school, he joined Lehman Brothers as an associate in Equity Research and was recruited by Goldman Sachs to cover the Internet sector in 1999. Then in 2003, he added coverage of the Media and Entertainment sectors and was named Managing Director. According to the annual Institutional Investor poll and Greenwich Survey, Anthony earned the distinction of being the Number One Ranked Internet Analyst from 2003 to 2007, and in 2004, was promoted to Partner to lead the firm’s Communications, Media, and Internet Equity Research business unit.
Joining the NFL
While at Goldman, Anthony did advisory work for the NFL, which led to him being recruited as its CFO. Again returning to the game he loved, Anthony focused his passion—this time, on helping lead the organization through the financial crisis. He and his team set the framework to take the league from billions in debt due to stadium financing and an uneconomic labor deal, to a new, durable economic foundation. This foundation encompassed all 32 teams and the league as a whole, while meeting the unique goals of each club across three economic variables: revenue sharing, labor costs, and stadium costs.
During his time with the NFL, Anthony was also a key contributor in renegotiating the league’s media deals and increasing the linear television distribution of the NFL network. Finally, through his leadership and collaboration, he helped establish the go-forward strategy and long-term objective for the NFL to reach $25 billion in revenue by 2028.
Growing platforms and profits
Anthony rejoined Goldman Sachs in 2011, first as the Head of Media Investment Banking, and then as Co-Head of Global Technology Media and Telecommunication Investment Banking. As Co-Head of TMT Banking, he spearheaded a new strategy and restructured the operating approach to drive better prioritization, allocation of resources, and increased accountability. This resulted in significant market share gains, and the business went on to achieve more aggregate profit in 2013 than it had cumulatively delivered in the prior ten years.
During this time, Anthony served as the Lead Banker in the highly-anticipated Twitter IPO. He was then recruited by Twitter, first as CFO, and went on to become the company’s COO.
At Twitter, Anthony spearheaded the addition of live-streaming sports, entertainment, and news video on the Twitter platform. He not only led a broad cross-functional team across product engineering and marketing, but also secured streaming video rights from leading sports leagues—including the first, live simulcast airing of NFL Thursday Night Football on both network television and Twitter. This product experience combined live-streaming video with real-time, Tweet stream conversations about the event from celebrities, athletes, Hollywood stars, politicians, government leaders, and subject-matter experts.
All in all, live video content deals included the NFL (the first simulcasted game without a paywall), MLB, WNBA, WNHL, major college conferences (including the Pac-12 and Big 12), and live PGA tour events—as well as underserved women’s and Olympic sports. In addition, the effort brought live-streaming of news, coverage of the 2016 presidential debates, and numerous entertainment awards shows to the Twitter platform. By the end of 2017, Twitter live streamed 1,140 events in the fourth quarter alone.
As COO, Anthony helped lead the strategic transition of the business—as well as the necessary financial restructuring—that not only led to Twitter's first quarter of GAAP profitability in Q4 2017, but also a return to both revenue and user growth.
Leading others to financial independence
In February of 2018, Anthony was recruited to become the CEO of SoFi. Anthony saw the opportunity to build a mission-driven company and to achieve the same winner-takes-most position in digital financial services that he experienced in the retail, travel, and media industries, by leading digital companies. He also saw the opportunity to grow Sofi’s offerings from two loan products into a mobile one-stop-shop that covers all of an individual’s financial needs—one that could help people get their money right in all facets and stages of their lives.
This passion to provide others with financial independence was deeply rooted in Anthony’s career successes and his time growing up in Poughkeepsie, New York—inspiration he drew from his hard-working mom, who achieved great success without a high school degree, and from the leadership he received from numerous people throughout his life.
While at SoFi, Anthony has helped lead the company to achieve a number of milestones—including taking SoFi public on Nasdaq in June 2021, valuing it at $8.65B. SoFi also made two acquisitions: first, of Galileo Financial Technologies in April 2021, and later, of Technisys in February 2022. These acquisitions were integral in accelerating SoFi’s development of a digital banking platform that offers people a number of unique financial products and services. Since becoming publicly traded, SoFi has seen record results in spite of shifting political, fiscal, and economic landscapes. These milestones, paired with the approval to operate as a fully chartered bank, has brought the company several steps closer to Anthony’s—and SoFi’s—passion for helping more people achieve financial independence.
Key to these successes, Anthony once again drew upon his love for football and the NFL’s passionate fan base. Armed with his deep understanding of live sports and the trusted nature of the NFL brand, SoFi signed a 20-year deal for the naming rights of SoFi Stadium. This enabled the company to efficiently reach tens-of-millions of people—weekly—on its path to make SoFi a trusted household name.
Beyond business
Anthony’s leadership and passion extend well beyond business. Together with Kristin, his wife of 31 years, their work for philanthropic causes includes numerous veterans organizations, the Child Mind Institute, and various organizations that help underserved and underrepresented groups. While these are some of Anthony’s and Kristin’s proudest accomplishments, they are second only to raising their five wonderful kids.
In addition, Anthony proudly serves on the board of the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and has served on the athletic boards of three Division 1 universities.
Click to read the release announcing his induction into the NFF Leadership Hall of Fame.
