Polo has long been called the “Sport of Kings”—a world of manicured lawns, champagne, and generational wealth. So you’d be forgiven for thinking the CEO of a $2.7 billion global heritage polo brand comes from old money connections, with an Ivy League education and a corner office inherited rather than earned. But U.S. Polo Assn’s CEO J. Michael Prince is none of those things.
“I grew up in the middle part of the United States, southeastern Oklahoma—which is actually one of the poor parts of the country, there are four or five really poor parts of the United States, and that’s up there with them,” Prince tells Fortune.
