As an undergraduate studying government at Harvard University, Xavier A. Gutierrez, JD ’00, thought he was headed for a career in politics. He interned one summer for the mayor of Baldwin Park, California, who, like Gutierrez, had roots in Mexico and was active in the Latino community.

But when Gutierrez was gathering letters of recommendation for a graduate program in public policy, the mayor—a 23-year-old named Fidel Vargas—refused to write one. Instead, he started talking to Gutierrez about investment banking, asset management, and management consulting.

“He said, ‘Go work for Wall Street,’” Gutierrez remembers. “‘Bring capital into our communities.’”

The advice from Vargas—who remains a friend and now heads the Hispanic Scholarship Fund—“really changed my career,” Gutierrez recalls.

His next internship was at Lehman Brothers, and, instead of pursuing policy, he went to Stanford Law School. From there, he landed a series of finance-related positions, culminating in a role as managing director at Clearlake Capital Group, a leading private investment firm where he remains an executive council member.

After success in the investment world, Gutierrez’s career took another turn in 2020. That year, he became chief executive officer and president of the National Hockey League’s Arizona Coyotes when his business partner and former boss Alex Meruelo purchased a majority stake in the team. He remained in that role until the team’s sale earlier this year. Most recently, he launched not one but two major enterprises: ImpactX Sports Group, a private investment and strategic advisory firm focused on the global sports industry, and Latinos in Sports, a platform designed to highlight the positive contributions of Latinos in the business of sports and to put Latinos in positions of power in the industry.

“His sights were set on something different from the very beginning,” says Robert Mason, JD ’00, of his friend’s career.

Gutierrez views his current role as a continuation of work he began at the Coyotes, which supported education, health and wellness, and economic advancement initiatives; celebrated affinity groups—including Latinos—through their “Hockey Is For Everyone” campaign; and sponsored learn-to-play events around Arizona. The team—through Gutierrez—was also a founding member of Pro Sports Assembly, an organization that seeks to increase diversity in professional sports.

His latest ventures embody both his long-standing passion for the Latino community and his more recent excitement for identifying new business opportunities in sports.

“Sports are important to culture, commerce, and community, and Latinos are important to sports,” he says. Research on the Latinos in Sports website shows that 92 percent of Latino fans view sports as important to their lives and that 40 percent of Latinos consider themselves “avid” fans.

“That’s very actionable,” Gutierrez says.

Gutierrez, who emigrated with his mother from Guadalajara, Mexico, to the United States when he was 5 years old, grew up the oldest of four children in a working-class community in East San Jose. His stepfather was a mechanic; his mother later worked in migrant education. He attended public schools through middle school and received financial assistance to study at Bellarmine College Preparatory.

At Stanford, he thought he would pursue a joint degree in law and business, but he found a way to get hands-on private-sector experience instead. After his second year, he took a leave to work for the startup govWorks, where his roommate José E. Feliciano (MBA ’99) had taken a job as chief financial officer [govWorks’ rise and fall was featured in the 2001 documentary Startup.com].

“I remember the dean then,  Kathleen Sullivan, saying, ‘What are you doing?’” Gutierrez says with a laugh. “And I said, ‘This is an opportunity to do what I think Stanford Law School does really well, which is to craft leaders across industries.’”

When govWorks went under, Gutierrez returned to Stanford. After graduating in 2000, he worked at Latham & Watkins for a year before moving to Los Angeles with the goal of bringing institutional capital into urban communities. He was able to execute on that idea in 2002 when he joined Phoenix Realty Group and launched its real estate private equity fund business. The firm specialized in the development and operation of middle-market and low-income tax-credit housing, among other areas. Next, he served as president and chief investment officer of the Meruelo Group, overseeing investments and acquisitions and deal origination, underwriting, and execution.

Gutierrez is also co-founder of Suma Wealth, a wealth-building digital platform for the Latino community that launched in 2020.

“The continued economic competitiveness of the United States is really tied to the economic empowerment of the Latino community,” he says. “How do you put a savings account, an investment account, and a retirement account into every Latino household in America? You have to engage people in a financial wellness conversation.”

Gutierrez, who is a member of Stanford Law School’s Board of Visitors and the board of the Stanford Alumni Association, says he highly recommends a law degree.

“It teaches you how to create structure out of chaos—you get inundated with information, and you have to create a pathway to a decision. That’s what I do in business every single day,” he says. “For me, it’s been an invaluable experience that has directly tied to my career in finance, investments, and sports.”

Andrés Irlando, JD ’98, who met Gutierrez through an organization for Mexican-American students at Harvard, says his friend “has always been a trailblazer, a go-getter, someone willing to take risks.” In his latest work, Irlando adds, Gutierrez has “really carved out a name for himself and created a platform around Latinos in sports.”

In some sense, Gutierrez is the platform: He was not only the NHL’s first Latino president and CEO but also the only Latino with that title across more than 150 teams in the major men’s professional leagues in North America.

“I realized when I’m not in that role, there will be zero,” he recalls. “I didn’t want to see that happen.”

Latinos in Sports launched earlier this year with a series of convenings at major sporting events, including Formula One’s Miami Grand Prix and the U.S. Open. ImpactX is more nascent; Gutierrez launched the firm in September 2024.

Private equity ownership of sports teams in the United States is relatively recent and still restricted to minority stakes in most cases. But Gutierrez sees opportunities for investment in “additional business lines and growth ventures,” including real estate, intellectual property, and market expansion.

“When you think of the business of sports, it has traditionally been focused on the sports component,” Gutierrez says. “But there are all these other opportunities, and they are very large.”

Post-Coyotes, Gutierrez is excited to be embarking on a new career, one in which he’s combining his experiences managing investments and a major sports team.

“Sports have the power to convene, to unite, to bring joy and hope,” he explains. “At the Coyotes, our entire business plan—everything we wanted to do—was to make a difference in the lives of our players, in the industry, in the community. That’s what we focused on. That focus for me has now broadened.” SL