Shelby Jordan is an L.A. kind of guy. He grew up there and went to USC, where he played basketball.
And like other Hollywood stories, Jordan got his big break there.
“One of my dad’s good friends took me to a Lakers game, and we are sitting out on City View Terrace [restaurant] and he’s all like ‘I want to introduce you to somebody.’ It was Tim Leiweke,” said Jordan of the meeting in 2000 when he was a senior in college and realizing his basketball playing days were winding down.
After a little online research, Jordan learned that Leiweke was president and CEO of AEG at the time. “I literally peppered his assistant for the better part of three or four months. Phone calls, emails,” Jordan said.
That persistence turned into a meeting and a job with AEG.
Jordan shares a name with his father, a former NFL offensive lineman who won a Super Bowl with the Los Angeles Raiders and taught him the importance of humility and how success and personal development are enabled by others.
“At the end you may accomplish something, you may do something but usually not just because of you,” he said. “Someone along the way has helped you.”
While at AEG, Jordan worked on project management, financing and development of Dignity Health Sports Park, New York’s PlayStation Theater and hotel, entertainment, residential and other components of L.A. Live.
He moved to Legends in 2017 and was a senior project manager for LAFC’s $350 million Banc of California Stadium. He has been consulting on the new $150 million Class AAA baseball stadium in Las Vegas. It’s those L.A. projects and their economic impacts that appeal to Jordan.
“I’m doing something in my own backyard,” he said. “That’s really easy to get up and get motivated on a daily basis.”
