Honorees

Zachary Leonsis is the President of Media & New Enterprises for Monumental Sports & Entertainment, a fully integrated sports, entertainment, media, and technology company based in the heart of the “DMV” in downtown Washington, D.C. Monumental is widely recognized for its prominent fan-facing brands, including the NHL’s Washington Capitals, the NBA’s Washington Wizards, the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, Capital One Arena, and Monumental Sports Network. Leonsis also serves as Alternate Governor for both the Washington Wizards and the Washington Mystics.

In his role as President, Leonsis leads all media and network operations, team rights agreements, and media revenue strategies. He also oversees Monumental’s corporate development activities, including mergers and acquisitions, venture capital, and private equity investment opportunities.

Leonsis launched and continues to lead Monumental’s rapidly expanding esports division, which includes Wizards District Gaming, Caps Gaming, and District E, and drives the company’s broader technology strategy. He represents Monumental on the board of directors of Team Liquid and contributes to the corporate strategy of Axiomatic, through which Monumental has made investments in leading companies such as Epic Games, Niantic, and Dapper Labs, among others.

Leonsis earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 2011 and later received his MBA from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, where he is a founding member of the Georgetown Entrepreneurship Advisory Board. In 2019, he joined the Advisory Board of the McDonough School of Business. He was appointed to the Governor of Virginia’s Advisory Board on Service and Volunteerism in 2016 and was recently elected to the Board of D.C. Central Kitchen in 2025. He remains actively involved in various nonprofit and charitable initiatives across the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia communities.

Leonsis has been recognized by the Washington Business Journal, Sports Business Journal, and Leaders in Sports, all of which named him to their prestigious “Forty Under 40” lists. He has also been featured by Sports Business Journal as an “RSN Power Player” and was recently inducted into their Forty Under 40 Hall of Fame. Additionally, he serves on the Media Committees for both the WNBA and G League, sits on the board of CLLCT, and previously served on the NBA 2K League’s Executive Committee.

Jim Shelton is the Chief Executive Officer of Blue Meridian Partners and a member of its Board of Directors.

Jim leads Blue Meridian’s efforts to connect investors and visionary leaders to utilize transformative capital to scale solutions that enable all Americans to achieve economic and social mobility and escape the persistent and powerful gravitational pull of poverty.

Prior to becoming CEO in March 2025, Jim served as President and Chief Investment and Impact Officer, overseeing Blue Meridian’s day-to-day operations and its efforts to continuously increase the impact, reach, and influence of social sector leaders and their organizations. During this period, Blue Meridian redoubled its nationwide efforts to expand effective solutions and deepened its support of regional and local strategies to break the predictive power of who one’s parents are and where one grows up on life chances through the compounding benefits of proven and promising solutions from cradle to career. Jim also led Blue Meridian’s pursuit of new approaches to improving economic and social mobility, including extending the organization’s work to explore the roles of for-profits, policy, and advocacy.

Jim’s early career spanned software development and impact-focused entrepreneurship, investing, and philanthropy. He served as the Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Education and was the founding Executive Director of My Brother’s Keeper. Subsequently, he was President and Chief Impact Officer at 2U, Inc. partnering with colleges and universities to increase access to and affordability of top degree programs. He later served as the founding President of Education for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Immediately before joining Blue Meridian, Jim founded Amandla Enterprises, an impact investment and advisory firm.

Jim serves on the boards of several non-profit and for-profit impact-focused organizations and is a Senior Social Impact Advisor to KKR.

Jim holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Morehouse College and master’s degrees in business administration and education from Stanford University.