2025 USTA Eastern Tennis Man of the Year: Perren Wong

Perren Wong, of Ardsley, N.Y., has been named USTA Eastern’s Leslie J. Fitz Gibbon Tennis Man of the Year for over a decade of visionary leadership as a volunteer at the local and national level.

In 2014, while registering his son for a junior tournament on TennisLink, Wong—a managing director at Morgan Stanley—clicked on a banner ad encouraging him to apply to become a member of the USTA Eastern Board of Directors. At the time, he probably never imagined that within just a few short years he’d ascend to treasurer, vice president and then president of the organization’s governing body. He simply knew that if selected to serve, he would approach his position the same way he approached any other volunteer opportunity.

“I try to leave things better than they were when I first arrived,” he says.

If that was the plan, it was a plan well executed. Throughout his tenure as a board member, Wong played an instrumental role in many of the decisions that have defined how the organization functions today. But he has also served as a guiding light for those who have followed in his footsteps.

“Perren’s leadership has not only shaped the culture of our board but will undoubtedly leave a lasting legacy for years to come,” says current USTA Eastern President Ari Roberts. “He was always open to new ideas and respectful of differing perspectives. His ability to inspire has made him a mentor to many of us.”

“Jeff was very sharing,” Wong recalls. “I remember the first annual meeting I went to, he wrote out, ‘This is how annual meetings work. These are the things that are important to go to, these are the things that are less important. Here are the decisions you need to make.’ During my term as president [from 2021-23], we introduced the idea of having board mentors and mentees. Before that existed, Jeff was definitely that to a few of us who had just joined [in 2015]. He helped us learn about how things work, so he was great.”

Because of his day job in the financial sector, Wong eventually went on to lead the section’s budget and finance committee, and he worked closely with McIntyre to reform Eastern’s grantmaking process. The result of those efforts—the Growing Tennis Together (GTT) Grant—is still the section’s signature funding opportunity for those interested in introducing the sport to more players.

“[With GTT] it was about creating a process for approving grants that was equitable and transparent, and that would include both a vetting system and an accountability check afterward,” he says.

A natural progression of the work he was already completing, Wong was elected the organization’s treasurer in 2017. He held that position for two years before subsequently taking on the role of vice president in 2019 and then president in 2021. The first year of his term in that capacity, he remembers, was heavily influenced by how the industry should respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. But even in the face of “unprecedented times,” Wong made his imprint. One major project he organized was setting up a succession plan for Schnitzer—who hoped to retire at the end of 2025—and helping name former USTA Eastern President Amber Marino as her successor.

“When I was first on the board, I remember Jenny introducing me to Ari,” Wong recalls. “Back then, he was a club owner and somewhat involved in the section. Seeing him rise through the ranks, going from a bit of involvement with the section to a regional director to secretary to vice president and now president…it's great. And I'm not saying I had much to do with it! But I would say watching him grow in the organization over the years is really, really a satisfying thing. And there's a few others. Watching volunteers succeed and grow, and become better volunteers, better contributors, is very satisfying.”

His former fellow board members have witnessed this in Wong as well. Today he is a member-at-large on the USTA National Board, where—again, given his day job at Morgan Stanley—he chairs the investment committee. Echoing his time developing a succession plan for Schnitzer, he also joined the group working to find a replacement for former USTA CEO Lew Sherr, who left the organization midway through 2025. Naturally, much like his time at Eastern, he dove right in and displayed a willingness to offer his support in addressing critical issues.

“In many situations, you need to listen first, and learn and understand what's going on, but you also need to participate and be active,” he says. “In volunteer roles, it's very easy to become complacent and go through the motions. It becomes very transparent when people are complacent. So philosophically, my thoughts are always, ‘You have to show up, you have to be active.’”

Spoken like a person who plans to leave the place better than when he arrived.