By Lindsay Walker
Mail | Twitter: @AzNewsmedia

A Paradise Valley couple’s name graces the facade of a new downtown Phoenix headquarters.

The Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University unveiled its new headquarters on April 8, which will be known as the F. Francis and Dionne Najafi Thunderbird Global Headquarters. The state-of-the-art building on First and Polk streets opened on the school’s 75th anniversary, just four years after it merged with ASU.

The Najafis gave the school a $25 million donation earlier this year to fund an online education initiative that aims to bring Thunderbird’s global business education to countries across the world. The program’s goal is to educate 100 million worldwide learners by 2030.

Najafi, a minority owner of the Phoenix Suns, is the CEO of Pivotal Group, a private entrepreneurial investment firm in the Valley.

While the couple is honored to have the building named in their honor, both Dionne and Francis stressed that it wasn’t the reason for their donation.

“It is the ultimate, ultimate privilege to have a global headquarters of a very important school named after us,” said Francis. “But that should not take away from the reason behind all of that. [Our] desire to really have a program and great partners that can execute and provide access to business skills on a global scale. That’s really what has been a driver of everything we have done from day one.”

Francis said that the program he and his wife funded has made great strides in the last three months, though it’s still in its earliest stages.

ASU President Michael Crow said Thunderbird’s mission is especially timely today, decades after its opening.

“Thunderbird was born in the aftermath of the greatest conflict the world has ever seen and rather than create another West Point or Sandhurst, forward thinking leaders had the audacity to create an institution of higher learning focused on trade and commerce, a school where people could learn the value of working together, serving the values of democracy while seeking prosperity and peace,” said Crow in a written statement to the Independent. “With the support of Thunderbird alumni from around the world and by applying the full commitment of Arizona State University, we are focused together on the next 75 years in a world where the school and its graduates are needed more than ever. It is an ongoing mission that will never be complete.”

Both of the Najafis graduated from the Thunderbird school and Francis sat on its board for 12 years prior to the ASU merger, making the name of the building even more personal to the couple.

“Thunderbird has its own mystique that all alumni talk about,” said Dionne. “The people that attended Thunderbird really have an entrepreneurial spirit, but with that, wanting to do good at the same time. It’s a different kind of individual that attends.”

She said that having a school like Thunderbird in its borders “puts Arizona on the global map.”

Francis concurred, adding that combining Thunderbird’s global renown with ASU’s well-documented innovation, particularly with online education, is powerful for the Valley.
“It tells the world Arizona is important,” he said. “We care about Arizona, this is our home, this is where we built our business, where our children were born and educated. It’s an important state to us.”