Akshay Khanna
We talked to new SCORES board member Akshay Khanna about an array of issues, including his roots in South Asia and his passion for sports and immigration issues. Khanna is the North America CEO of the online lottery company Jackpot.
Tell us a bit about where you grew up and how those roots shaped you.
I was born in New Delhi, India. My father worked for the Indian government, and we moved fairly frequently, mostly throughout Asia. By the time I moved to the US to go to college in Vermont, I had lived in India, Thailand, Singapore, Burma (Myanmar), and Holland.
Moving around as much as we did was probably the single biggest part of making me who I am today. When you move around every two to three years, you have to continually adapt to new circumstances and new people. You have to make new friends, and that gets harder in your middle school and high school years. I have a lot of friends who lived in the same house for all 18 years they were growing up, friends who went to elementary school, middle school, and high school with the same people. I did not get an opportunity to do all that. My path was very different and very good in its own way.
Sports have been a major part of your professional path. What drew you so strongly?
My entire life I’ve played one kind of sport or another. It’s been a huge part of my upbringing and a constant theme of my life. I played soccer on various traveling teams growing up and in high school flew all over Southeast Asia to play other American teams. But right before my freshman (college) summer, I got injured and pretty much went cold turkey for a while. Soccer is still my favorite sport in the world, and it was incredibly hard to give up, but my body needed a break.
Youth sports help you learn about yourself. They teach you about teamwork, leadership, organization, and friendship. And so when I was trying to figure out what to do with my life, the decision to do something in and around the sports world was an easy choice. That’s where I needed to start. That led me to Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which owns a stable of major teams (including the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils), and later to Stubhub, where I was the GM of the NFL, NBA, and NHL vertical.
You sit on the board of the National Immigration Forum. How did you move into that role?
When I was finishing up my graduate degrees at the University of Pennsylvania, a friend of mine who works for the World Economic Forum told me about the Global Shapers program. It was designed to boost the proliferation of young people passionate about social change and to help those young leaders leverage the deep resources of the World Economic Forum. Global Shapers participants are interested in a wide range of subjects: improving public education, tackling climate change, helping the unbanked, financial literacy, and more. My passion is immigration.
Through a conference I later attended, I met the (now former) longtime CEO and spokesperson for the National Immigration Forum, Ali Noorani. One thing led to another, and today I sit on the board. I feel passionate about the need for increased legal immigration to the United States.
Why do you feel so passionately about immigration?
For a couple of reasons. Immigration is a very personal journey. People have emigrated here in delta waves, and the way we handle it in this country is incredibly fickle. I’ve had the privilege of dealing with it in a way that most people don’t get to experience – I have relatives in this country, am relatively well educated, and am fairly financially well off. Having seen how painful it can be for nearly everyone who has to deal with the immigration system, I’m moved to do something. This country was created as a country of immigrants and is better off for the immigrants it attracts. I think we’ve strayed from those core values. The National Immigration Forum and other organizations are helping to take us back to those values.
You took a break from playing soccer, but where are you throwing your sports energy now?
I found other ways to get my sports and adrenaline rush! I started playing squash in college and played in a few soccer pick-up leagues again after college. Most recently, I’ve become an avid, even fanatical golfer – my wife is a former professional golfer.
Check out more 5 Questions With interviews HERE