Danny Schayes enjoyed a distinguished 18-year career in the NBA, playing for iconic teams including the Utah Jazz, Denver Nuggets, Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Lakers, Phoenix Suns, Miami Heat, and Orlando Magic. Following his retirement from professional basketball, he earned an International MBA from Anaheim University, which paved the way for his successful transition into the corporate world. Schayes went on to serve as Industry Director (Insurance) at Ricoh USA and now holds the position of Senior Industry Specialist for Sports and Entertainment at Endava.

“My name is Danny Schayes, and I am a graduate of Anaheim University with a Masters of Entrepreneurship degree. I have a varied business history mostly in the world of professional sports. I started my journey as an NBA player for 18 years. During that time, I became involved in the business side of the game as well. When I retired as an active player at 40 years old, I was unemployable in the traditional sense as I had never worked in a corporate setting. I started my business career as an entrepreneur in real estate. I furthered my education by attending weekend seminar courses in many areas of investing over the next 3 years. I started flipping houses and developed a real estate business.

Eventually I transitioned into the corporate world in sports as specific opportunities crossed my path. As I developed my skills in business development, I soon found that I was undereducated in corporate business. At the time, the National Basketball Retired Players Association had a sponsorship agreement with Anaheim University. It was designed to offer former NBA players the opportunity to advance their education and support their life/business transition. The program was flexible, perfect with my busy schedule. I found the folks at AU easy to work with and the coursework was very professionally presented. I took advantage of the program to both build additional skills and qualify for higher level corporate opportunities.

The results were immediate. At the time, I was part of a start-up company that was in the insurance space. One of my clients was Ricoh who was developing a new technology platform that my solution fit into. Soon after, the head of their US insurance section retired. As I was already in the mix and was well known to the key folks at Ricoh, it was natural for me to be considered. One of the requirements for the position was a master’s degree. Fortunately for me I now had one! I was hired for the position and soon ran digital strategy for the 50 largest accounts in Ricoh’s North American portfolio. Since then, I was hired by a global technology company to oversee data strategy for professional and college sports teams in the US.

I owe this all to Anaheim University. Not only do I have the degree, but the advanced learning I received has been critical to my success. One area that has been specifically valuable has been in understanding international business. While the specific responsibilities for my last two jobs have been in North America, both companies are large global companies with headquarters in Tokyo and London, respectively. I am working with production teams all over the world and what I learned at Anaheim University has been a key element for me.

I am obviously very pleased with my experience and hope to pursue a doctoral level degree there in the future.”