Mike Meldman

Michael Meldman is the founder and chairman of Discovery Land Company, a private golf and residential development firm he started in 1994. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1958, he graduated from Stanford University in 1981 and worked as a commercial real estate broker in the Bay Area before financing his first property investment — a 300-acre parcel in Portola Valley, California — with a group of friends.

Discovery Land Company opened its first development, The Estancia Club in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1996. The company has since grown into one of the largest private club developers in the world, with more than 35 residential communities on its roster as of 2024 — among them the Bakers Bay Golf & Ocean Club on Great Guana Cay, the development at the center of this site's reporting.

Meldman has also built a career outside real estate. In 2012 he co-founded Casamigos Tequila with George Clooney and Rande Gerber; the brand sold to Diageo in 2017 for $700 million, with up to $300 million more tied to performance targets. In December 2024, he purchased a 7.5% ownership stake in the NFL's Las Vegas Raiders.

Several conservation groups have mentioned Meldman by name, such as in this letter by Greenpeace.