Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank one of America’s “Most Inspiring”: Esquire magazine

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Kevin Plank, the founder of Tide Point-based Under Armour, is kind of a big deal. He’s an entrepreneurship kingpin in Baltimore.
It’s not every CEO who takes a shot across the bow directly at Nike by releasing his own line of running shoe. Or gets three-time Super Bowl champion quarterback of the New England Patriots, Tom Brady (nemesis of the Baltimore Ravens … whoops), in an endorsement deal after his deal with Nike expired in 2010.
According to Esquire magazine, that makes Plank one of this country’s most inspiring CEOs, “a list of people worth emulating.”

As Esquire writes:

Kevin Plank started Under Armour, the athletic-apparel company, out of a row house in Georgetown in 1996. He sold $17,000 worth of product that year. Five years later, he sold $20 million. Five years after that, nearly $300 million. Five years after that, he topped $1 billion. In 2012, the company is on track to do $1.8 billion in sales. Plank had just 226 employees as recently as 2003; the company has more than 5,000 today. [more]

Gangnam-style swag. All day.