VERSATILITY

Shahid Khan was born in Lahore, Pakistan on July 18, 1950 to a middle-class family who were involved in the construction industry. His mother (now retired) was a professor of mathematics. He moved to the United States in 1967 at age 16 to study at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. When he came to the United States, he spent his first night in a $2/night room at the University Y-YMCA, and his first job was washing dishes for $1.20 an hour. He joined the Beta Theta Pi fraternity at the school. He graduated from the UIUC College of Engineering with a BSc in Industrial Engineering in 1971. Khan acquired US citizenship in 1991. He is Muslim.
Shahid Khan is an example of versatility entrepreneurs because he has been doing a business in three different sectors which are he is the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars of the National Football League (NFL), the English Football League Championship team Fulham F.C., and automobile parts manufacturer Flex-N-Gate in Urbana, Illinois.

In 1980 he bought Flex-N-Gate from his former employer Charles Gleason Butzow, bringing Bumper Works into the fold. Khan grew the company so that it supplied bumpers for the Big Three automakers. By 1987 it was the sole supplier for Toyota pickups and by 1989 it was the sole supplier for the entire Toyota line in the United States. Adopting The Toyota Way increased company efficiency and ability to change its manufacturing process within a few minutes. By 2011, Flex-N-Gate had 12,450 employees and 48 manufacturing plants in the United States and several other countries, and took in $3 billion in revenue.

In July 2013 Khan negotiated the purchase of the London soccer club Fulham of the Premier League from its previous owner, Mohamed Al Fayed. The deal was finalized on July 12, 2013 with the amount estimated between £150–200 million. An official purchase price for the club was not announced with Khan stating that it was "highly confidential".