Phil Knight's Gulfstream lands in Redmond the day after Nike names new CFO

Phil Knight’s Gulfstream G500, registered N19HT, was tracked departing Santiam Junction State Airport at 7:17 a.m. local time on June 24 and arriving at Roberts Field in Redmond, Oregon, ten minutes later. The brief flight — covering roughly 50 miles at 345 knots — is consistent with a repositioning or a quick transfer between properties in the Oregon Cascades.

If Phil Knight was aboard, he would have landed in Redmond the same week Nike announced a planned CFO transition. On June 23, the company named Pfizer executive David Denton as its new chief financial officer, replacing Matthew Friend effective August 17, per a regulatory filing covered by Reuters. The change is part of a broader management overhaul under CEO Elliott Hill, who took over in October 2024 to steer a turnaround amid inventory and demand challenges.

The flight fits a pattern: Knight’s aircraft has made multiple trips to the Bend-Redmond area in recent weeks, including a June 15 flight to the Southeast and several hops between Hillsboro and coordinates near Bend. Knight, who co-founded Nike and still controls a majority of its voting shares through Swoosh LLC, maintains a private hangar at Hillsboro Airport and is known to use his jets for both personal travel and occasional employee transport.