Dany Garcia on Building Her Business Empire with Dwayne Johnson - Foundr

The founder of The Garcia Companies is living proof that it’s possible to run multiple businesses—successfully—all at once. She’s co-owner of the UFL, formerly XFL (making her the first woman in the U.S.

to own an equal or majority stake in a professional sports league), and recently launched a new fashion brand, GSTQ. She also produces blockbuster films with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. My decision to go into finance was because the time I spend there is going to give me a fantastic understanding of what I need for companies to be built, fundamentally.”.

In 2008, Johnson and Garcia decided to divorce amicably. He asked Garcia to manage him, and she got to work helping to rebrand the former wrestler.

She later founded her multiplatform enterprise, The Garcia Companies, a global brand development and diverse management company that builds a portfolio of innovative, consumer-facing corporations through development, investment, or acquisitions. The vast portfolio includes the Seven Bucks brands, Athleticon, Acorns, and Atom Tickets as well as TGC Management, which includes Johnson and actor Henry Cavill.

Garcia says it allowed them to inject their philosophical point of view into filmmaking. When they first began, Garcia was coming from a finance background, and Johnson was fresh from the WWE.

“So we had to earn every step, every comment, every note that went into a script—we had to earn by having incredible success but also by giving a perspective and a point of view that no one had ever heard before,” Garcia says. “When we talk about obsession, you have to become obsessed with your clients’ success and their vision,” Garcia says? In 2020, Garcia was awarded the Outstanding Film Producer Impact Award from the National Hispanic Media Coalition.

Garcia acknowledges that her portfolio seems disparate. “We were looking at an opportunity to be the stewards of football in a 360 sort of viewpoint, multidimensionally looking at everything that surrounds football and taking responsibility for that,” Garcia says.

“I look for my companies to elevate the other companies that are within the portfolio. WHY YOU NEED TO FIRE YOURSELF | DANY GARCIA INTERVIEW Watch this video on YouTube.

“I try never to get too much into the soup of anything because then I lose my perspective,” Garcia says. That’s how she keeps perspective on so many companies while still keeping time for family and self-care. Since I do have such a broad portfolio, being very centered in what my philosophy is and understanding how I want to interact with the world and how I want my companies to interact in the world is very important.” It all goes back to how differently Garcia looks at business and building her portfolio.