Zak Brown

Zakary Challen Brown (born November 7, 1971) is an American motorsports executive. He is the chief executive officer of McLaren Racing. Born and raised in California, Brown raced professionally around the world for ten years before focusing on motorsport's business and commercial worlds.

Brown co-founded and co-owns United Autosports, a professional team competing in international sportscar racing and various historic racing events around the world. United Autosports is a leading racing team competing in international sportscar racing, winning 6 championships and winning the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 24 Hours of Le Mans twice. He was the non-executive chairman of Motorsport Network, a global market-leading motorsport and automotive digital platform, between 2016 and 2019.

Brown has been recognised by a range of industry bodies and publications. Most recently, Brown received a TIME100 Impact Award on December 2, 2025 and was included in the Financial Times Most Influential of 2025 list. He was also included the Paddock Magazine F1 Power List and his induction into the Sports Business Journal "Forty Under 40" Hall of Fame, where he was listed three times. He was named Promo Marketer of the Year by PROMO Magazine, and Just Marketing, Inc. (JMI), a motorsports marketing agency founded by Brown in 1995, has appeared five times in Inc. Magazine's "Inc 500" annual list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in the United States.

Brown began his racing career in karting in 1986, winning 22 races in five seasons from 1986 to 1990. He moved to Europe where his first win was in Formula Ford 1600 at England's Donington Park. In the 1992 Formula Opel-Lotus Benelux Series, Brown secured top-ten finishes in each of the season's races. The following year, Brown finished fourth in the series.

Brown has competed on both sides of the Atlantic, contesting North America's Toyota Atlantic Series in addition to the Formula Opel-Lotus Benelux Series and 1994 British Formula Three Championship. Brown made his Indy Lights debut at Laguna Seca in the 1995 season and competed in a German Formula Three Championship race in 1996.

In 1997, Brown competed at the 24 Hours at Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring in the GT2 class with Roock Racing in a factory-supported Porsche 911 GT2, finishing second in both.

Brown took a sabbatical from professional racing between 2001 and 2005 to concentrate on JMI, his motorsport marketing business. In 2006 he returned to the track with an entry in the Britcar 24 Hours race, winning his class as a member of the driver line-up for Moore International Motorsport. In 2007, he contested the Ferrari Challenge Series as part of a six-car stable fielded by Ferrari of Washington. At his debut in Fontana, he started in pole position and led every lap to claim victory. The following year Brown returned to full-time competition, with his Ferrari Challenge Series campaign highlighted by a win at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal.

In 2009, Brown and Richard Dean co-founded United Autosports. In 2010 the team scored a third-place finish in the GT3 category at the Total 24 Hours of Spa and recorded its maiden class victory in the 2011 British GT Championship at Snetterton. In 2012, the team raced in both the Blancpain Endurance Series with a McLaren MP4-12C and the British GT Championship with an Audi R8 LMS. The team also competed in the Dubai 12 Hour race, the Bathurst 12 Hour, Macau GT Cup, and the Spa 24 Hours. Brown himself won the last round of the British GT Championship at Donington Park with Álvaro Parente as a wild-card entry for the team in a McLaren MP4-12C GT3.

As a teenager, Brown competed on the game show Wheel of Fortune in 1984, where he won $3,050 from which Brown bought his first kart.

Brown is Jewish and was raised in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, CA. He is married, has two sons, McGuire and Maxwell, and lives in Surrey, England. Brown has tattoos of the Autodromo Nazionale Monza and Miami International Autodrome, after Daniel Ricciardo's win at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix and Lando Norris's win at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix.