Jay Penske

Early life

Penske is the youngest son of Kathy and Roger Penske, the auto racing entrepreneur and former driver. Penske graduated from high school at St. Mary's Preparatory after having attended Cranbrook and Lawrenceville. At St. Mary's, Penske was named All-League, All-State, All-American, and Player of the Year by USA Today in Lacrosse. Penske also played hockey and earned All-Region and All-State honors. In 1997 he set the school records for the most goals, assists, and total points in lacrosse in the school's history, after which they retired his number. Penske during his final season of lacrosse holds the all-time high school record for points in a single season, breaking Michael Powell's record of 194 points with 202 points. Penske remains the only player in lacrosse history to break the 200-point barrier in one season.

He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School with a Bachelor of Science in Management of Information Systems and Finance. Penske is on the board of the Entrepreneurial School at the Wharton School as of 2007, and is also a member of the University of Pennsylvania Library's Board of Directors.

Businesses

Penske is the founder, Chairman and CEO of PMC. Penske Media Corporation is a digital media and publishing company that owns and operates numerous media brands and live events. In 2014, PMC acquired Fairchild Publishing from Condé Nast for $100million, the Fairchild business was formerly sold to Condé Nast by Disney in 1999 for $650 million.

PMC's other owned and operated brands currently include Variety.com, Variety (magazine), Deadline.com, MovieLine.com, HollywoodLife.com, LA411, NY411, TVLine.com, BGR.com, CricketCountry.com, India.com, StyleAwards, Breakthrough Awards, VarietyLatino.com, and other digital publishing assets. Penske was also formerly the founder and CEO of Mail.com, the email and portal service which PMC sold to the German media company United Internet for an amount between €50-€100Million in 2010. In addition he also cofounded and was Chairman of Firefly Mobile, Inc., a wireless company that developed the Firefly mobile phone for children, and other youth targeted mobile products. Penske also owns Dragon Books, Ltd., a Los Angeles-based bookstore which sells rare and collectible books which opened for business in 1999.

Penske additionally owned an IndyCar Series racing team with Steve Luczo, the Chairman of Seagate Technologies. Luczo Dragon Racing's Raphael Matos won rookie of the year honors in 2009. The team name is derived from Penske's love of books and business interest Dragon Books, Ltd., and his partner's last name. For 2010, Penske's racing team had former Indy Lights champion Raphael Matos behind the wheel of the HP #2 car for the full Indycar Series circuit of events. In 2011, the name of the team changed to Dragon Racing, with Penske as the sole owner, and Paul Tracy was announced as the driver. In 2012 the team planned to run Lotus engines with a two-car team composed of Sébastien Bourdais and Katherine Legge. Due to issues with the Lotus engines Dragon Racing switched to Chevrolet for the Indy 500. Dragon Racing's drivers for the 2013 season were Sebastian Saavedra and Sébastien Bourdais.

In October 2013, Dragon Racing signed an agreement with Formula E Holdings to be the fourth franchise team to enter the new FIA Formula E Championship. Dragon Racing's drivers for the 2014/2015 FIA Formula E Championship season will be Jérôme d'Ambrosio, Oriol Servià, and Loïc Duval.

Philanthropy

Penske assists the charitable trust organization the Paley Center for Media, where he sits on the Board of Directors. Penske was added to the Paley Board in 2015 along with Yannick Bollore, Chairman and CEO, Havas and Devin Wenig, the CEO of eBay. Additionally, Penske's significant support of The Library of America, the nonprofit publisher of classic American literature was realized in 2010, when Penske gave the gift of H. L. Mencken's Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series, which keeps classics in print permanently to preserve America's literary heritage. Furthermore, Penske's racing team, Dragon Racing has donated over $250,000 of its race proceeds—to benefit the charities and non-profit organizations founded by Baron Davis, Tony Dungy, John Elway, Wayne Gretzky, Marcus Allen, Jackson Browne, Brandi Chastain, Ronnie Lott, Jonny Moseley, Chris Mullin, Kerri Walsh and Kristi Yamaguchi.

Recognition & awards

Under Penske's leadership, PMC was awarded as one of North America's top 100 Private Companies. Penske was additionally recognized repeatedly as both a 30 Under 30 and Under 40 Success Story. Penske was also added to VanityFair's New Establishment list, and in 2010 Vanity Fair named Penske one of the 10 best dressed men in the world in their "2010 International Best-Dressed List". Additionally Penske has been named a Vice Chair of the American Film Institute (AFI) in 2014, and in 2015 Penske was named by the NY Observer newspaper as one of the 25 most powerful people in Los Angeles.

Assault

Penske was arrested along with his brother Mark on August 9, 2012 after two women claimed they were assaulted by the pair. It was also claimed that Jay Penske urinated on one of the women. The brothers were placed on probation following the incident.