Dick Donahue

Richard King Donahue^[1] (July 20, 1927 – December 14, 2015) was an American lawyer, political staffer, and business executive. Doanhue also worked as a political confidant and staffer to President John F. Kennedy and to his brothers, Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy. From 1977 through 2008, he worked as a member of the corporate leadership board of Nike, Inc. He also was well-involved in a number of non-profits.

A member of President Kennedy's inner circle, which was sometimes dubbed the "Irish Mafia", Donahue worked on Kennedy's United States Senate and presidential campaigns and served in Kennedy's White House as the staff assistant to the president of the United States. He subsequently worked on the 1968 presidential campaign of the late President Kennedy's younger brother Robert F. Kennedy, until Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated on the campaign trail. Donahue later worked with Kennedy's surviving brother, United States Senator Ted Kennedy, including on Ted Kennedy's own presidential campaign in 1980. He was also involved in the leadership of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

During his time on board of Nike, Inc., Donahue's problem-solving and political connections were valuable to the company. Donahue served a four-year stint as the company's president and COO from 1990 through 1994. During this time, he saw the company through great expansion, and he has been credited with helping it double its annual sales totals during his four years in these positions. Nike, Inc. would become a Fortune 500 company in 1995, just one year after he stepped down as president and COO.

Donahue's legal career was very successful. He served in leadership positions in the Massachusetts Bar Association, the American Bar Association, and the New England Bar Association. However, in the late-1990s, he saw his legal reputation take a hit after he was involved in a scheme to use deceptive circumstances to coax a law clerk into saying that Massachusetts District Court Judge Maria Lopez had been entirely biased when she ruled against members of the Demoulas family that were his clients. This ultimately resulted in Donahue being handed a three-year suspension from practicing law in Massachusetts in 2006. He was reinstated to good standing in 2011.