Dana White

Dana Frederick White Jr., born July 28, 1969 in Manchester, Connecticut, is an American businessman best known as the CEO and president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Raised by his mother, a nurse, after a childhood move to Las Vegas, White attended Bishop Gorman High School where he first crossed paths with future business partner Lorenzo Fertitta. He dropped out of both Quincy College and UMass Boston after a single semester and worked a series of odd jobs—laying asphalt, bouncing at an Irish bar, and bell‑hoping at the Boston Harbor Hotel—while training as a boxer from age 17. After a threatening encounter with mobster Whitey Bulger, he fled back to Las Vegas, where he began running boxercise gyms and training Brazilian jiu‑jitsu under John Lewis, eventually managing fighters Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell. In 2001, he helped Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta purchase the struggling UFC for $2 million, becoming its president and obtaining a sweat‑equity stake. White’s aggressive promotion, including the creation of The Ultimate Fighter reality series, turned the UFC into a global phenomenon, leading to multibillion‑dollar valuations, landmark pay‑per‑view events, and the eventual $4.025 billion sale to WME‑IMG in 2016. Beyond mixed martial arts, White founded Power Slap, hosts Dana White’s Contender Series, and has pursued boxing ventures such as Zuffa Boxing, while serving on Meta Platforms’ board of directors beginning in 2025. A self‑described atheist, he is an avid fan of the Beastie Boys, the New England Patriots, and high‑stakes gambling, often wagering hundreds of thousands of dollars per hand. Married to Anne Stella since 1996, the couple have three children, and White’s philanthropic efforts include sizable donations to disaster relief, medical causes, and charitable foundations across the United States.