Bob Graziano

Bob Graziano was the President and Chief Operations Officer of the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1998 to 2004. A graduate of the University of Southern California where he studied business administration, he got his start in accounting then went to work for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics in ticket operations. The games were a big financial success, and in 1986 he was hired by the Dodgers to work in the finance department, becoming Chief Financial Office in 1987. In 1997, he was promoted to executive Vice-President and in 1998 was named Team President after the team's sale to Rupert Murdoch and his company, News Corp.

He was team President during a tumultuous period, as the Dodgers, who until there had been characterized by stability ands class, with just two managers since moving to Los Angeles in 1958 and a spotlessly clean image, became a whirlwind, churning through managers, top executives and players at a rapid rate, all the while courting controversy and making all sorts of poor personnel decisions. He left the team after its sale to Frank McCourt in 2004. His replacement was Frank McCourt's wife, the controversial Jamie McCourt. In an incident typical of those years of turmoil, on August 23, 2000, he was forced to make a public apology to two female fans who had been forcefully ejected from Dodger Stadium by security guards on August 8th for kissing in public, an especially galling reasons since o such punishment had ever been handed out to heterosexual couples.

After baseball, he went to work in banking where he was quite successful, rising to the position of vice chairman of J.P. Morgan Chase in 2017. He has also served on the boards of various non-profit entities, including the Jackie Robinson Foundation.

Related Sites

• USC Business School bio