Blog
Member Spotlight: Rashid Ghazi
Rashid Ghazi will be a panelist at SAinSports event in Chicago on September 21st.
Rashid Ghazi is a business leader and entrepreneur with over 27 years of experience working in sponsorship marketing, media, advertising, content production and event creation. After spending the first 12 years of his career between the Leo Burnett Company, Intersport Television and Halo Sports & Entertainment, Rashid helped create Paragon Marketing Group where he has been a Partner for the past 15 years. Paragon which has offices in Skokie and Chicago, has grown into one of the leading independent sponsorship engagement agencies in the country with over 100 employees and clients including: Gatorade, ESPN, Yokohama, PNC Bank, Johnson & Johnson, UC Health, PPG Paints, Bayer Healthcare and DICK’S Sporting Goods. On behalf of its clients Paragon has placed over half-billion dollars into the sponsorship marketplace negotiating agreements and developing marketing platforms with a variety of NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB teams along with governing bodies such as the PGA TOUR, NCAA, USSA and USOC. In addition they have negotiated endorsement agreements with a number of athletes and celebrities including: Beyonce, Faith Hill, Drake, Cal Ripken Jr., Muhammad Ali, Joe Buck, Brett Favre, Barry Sanders and Lindsey Vonn.
On the content side, Rashid has created over 2,500 hours of sports television programming including live events, documentaries and episodic series for companies such as ESPN, Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN. In 2002 Rashid identified a new content opportunity in sports entertainment – nationally televised live high school sports programming. He first produced a high school basketball game featuring LeBron James for broadcast on ESPN2 which delivered a record rating for the network. The success of that telecast launched the live nationally televised high school event genre for ESPN. The network has since televised over 500 games delivered by Paragon featuring future NBA and NFL first round draft picks such as: Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis, James Harden, Tim Tebow, Julio Jones, AJ Green and Jameis Winston.
In addition to his work with Paragon, Rashid founded his own production company, North Shore Films in 2009. North Shore’s first production was the award winning sports documentary FORDSON: Faith, Fasting, Football. The film was distributed by AMC Theaters nationwide and has since been televised in over 30 countries. In addition, FORDSON has garnered multiple industry and film festival awards including Best U.S. Documentary at the Traverse City Film Festival hosted by Michael Moore. The Film was also screened at the U.S. State Department and was honored by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Rashid grew up in Skokie, Illinois and attended high school at North Shore Country Day in Winnetka. He is a 1989 graduate of the University of Redlands in Southern California where he double majored in Business and Sociology and served as Student Body President. He received his MBA in June of 1999 from the Kellogg Graduate School of Business at Northwestern University. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the North Shore Country Day School and IQRA Educational Foundation.
Rashid resides in Glenview with his wife, Ruhma, their daughter, and three sons.
Rashid Ghazi is a business leader and entrepreneur with over 27 years of experience working in sponsorship marketing, media, advertising, content production and event creation. After spending the first 12 years of his career between the Leo Burnett Company, Intersport Television and Halo Sports & Entertainment, Rashid helped create Paragon Marketing Group where he has been a Partner for the past 15 years. Paragon which has offices in Skokie and Chicago, has grown into one of the leading independent sponsorship engagement agencies in the country with over 100 employees and clients including: Gatorade, ESPN, Yokohama, PNC Bank, Johnson & Johnson, UC Health, PPG Paints, Bayer Healthcare and DICK’S Sporting Goods. On behalf of its clients Paragon has placed over half-billion dollars into the sponsorship marketplace negotiating agreements and developing marketing platforms with a variety of NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB teams along with governing bodies such as the PGA TOUR, NCAA, USSA and USOC. In addition they have negotiated endorsement agreements with a number of athletes and celebrities including: Beyonce, Faith Hill, Drake, Cal Ripken Jr., Muhammad Ali, Joe Buck, Brett Favre, Barry Sanders and Lindsey Vonn.
On the content side, Rashid has created over 2,500 hours of sports television programming including live events, documentaries and episodic series for companies such as ESPN, Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN. In 2002 Rashid identified a new content opportunity in sports entertainment – nationally televised live high school sports programming. He first produced a high school basketball game featuring LeBron James for broadcast on ESPN2 which delivered a record rating for the network. The success of that telecast launched the live nationally televised high school event genre for ESPN. The network has since televised over 500 games delivered by Paragon featuring future NBA and NFL first round draft picks such as: Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis, James Harden, Tim Tebow, Julio Jones, AJ Green and Jameis Winston.
In addition to his work with Paragon, Rashid founded his own production company, North Shore Films in 2009. North Shore’s first production was the award winning sports documentary FORDSON: Faith, Fasting, Football. The film was distributed by AMC Theaters nationwide and has since been televised in over 30 countries. In addition, FORDSON has garnered multiple industry and film festival awards including Best U.S. Documentary at the Traverse City Film Festival hosted by Michael Moore. The Film was also screened at the U.S. State Department and was honored by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Rashid grew up in Skokie, Illinois and attended high school at North Shore Country Day in Winnetka. He is a 1989 graduate of the University of Redlands in Southern California where he double majored in Business and Sociology and served as Student Body President. He received his MBA in June of 1999 from the Kellogg Graduate School of Business at Northwestern University. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the North Shore Country Day School and IQRA Educational Foundation.
Rashid resides in Glenview with his wife, Ruhma, their daughter, and three sons.
Neha Uberoi
Cofounder and CEO, South Asians in Sports
