Thread regarding Nike Inc. layoffs

Everyone will always find something to make up to fit their narrative. Needs to be more into tech strategy, but cannot to meet with most strategic partners. If the CTO came from a tech company would complain need more retail. Comes from retail complain not enough tech. People just unhappy in general.

I have found her in my observations to be hard but only when people try to talk their way around showing data that would expose their lack of knowledge or management about a space. She could do more all hands and be more visible in my opinion. However, to be fair, the role is upleveled from the RL days to a JD direct so probably supporting a lot more time commitments than GT to juggle. Definitely an area of opportunity.

@1xpo+1rTjXrfu She doesn’t come from a fashion background !!!! Amazon fashion is a bunch of people who knock off brands at low prices and source in locations with no checks and balances on labor conditions.

Get a different understanding of fashion before you say she has any time of understanding of fashion and what it takes to build a premium brand

Has anyone heard how the CTOs lapdog is faring in his new role

She'll just have JD put her up in a fancy apartment and claim she is local, but fly in on the private jet twice a week

I don’t believe for a second that she is moving to Beaverton. Her family is established in Seattle and she obviously loves it there. She will either negotiate this with JD or she will go back to Amazon.

Not impressed at all with the CTO, virtually non existent other than the sparse few communications piggybacking on other "leaders" pathetic communications. Understand she is new but at that level part of your job is to lead, there is none of that at all just radio silence. Terrible hire looks like a full blown bust to me

If you have seen her in meetings it’s obvious she bit off more than she could chew. She doesn’t understand tech and she doesn’t understand tech strategy

Oh amazing! The trip will include baklava and many positive thoughts for all of us, being terminated.

And at the end of the week, an email written by a comms person and a recorded all teams saying how sad they are for the people leaving, but hey - all done with respect and a severance.

Tbh, I was excited for MG as CTO. She had the potential of bringing new perspectives from one of the biggest and top companies. I understand she came from a fashion background so many people did not feel like this is fitting for Tech (fair point) but we also needed a leader which we were clearly lacking.
However, her actions have shown otherwise. We barely heard from her other than an intro email. Then the next piece of communication was echoing JDs layoff email. Not once did we have anything from any of the leaders during phase one which put everyone at the edges of their seat. Then her last piece of communication was that phase one is over. What’s even more laughable is these “leaders” don’t have the decency to compose an authentic empathetic email. Mostly corporate BS by copying and pasting the same few words. Seriously, pull up those emails that the leaders sent and notice several of the same paraphrased text. More PR BS.

Shame on me for believing otherwise.

Her staff told her this is a bad idea, but historically she doesn’t take disagreement well to put it mildly and neither did she this time. She gets very angry if you disagree with her. She’s never worked anywhere other than Amazon and the only reason she left was because they were not promoting her to SVP there fast enough [because she’s not good, she actually has a lack of skill and a horrible reputation]. She is using Nike to go back to Amazon as SVP or even C-suite but she actually lacks leadership talent.

I'm pretty sure that the CTO has been here for all of 4 months. Whatever your opinion, you can't really blame her for the state of tech here at Nike. That was already established here.

She's great, I love that she makes delicious baklava and brings them for the staff meeting.

It is a little weird that NOBODY i've talked to has had any real direct interface with our new CTO. She has been completely aloof after that small amount of presentation at the all hands when she joined. I know it takes a month or two for a new new exec to get up to speed, but this is getting ridiculous.

Don't put it all on the CTO, in theory a whole bunch of VPs who are supposed to be 'leaders' are part of that group. I doubt any of them told her it was a bad idea. A lot of those VPs were promoted to VP by su-king up to the last regime and the cronies that are still here.

They weren't decent enough to speak up when there was criminally unethical hiring and then forced utilization of vendors. Nor when the previous regime literally created a duplicate product org and then forced everyone in GT to act as if the other one didn't exist wasting millions in the process. Would we have needed any cuts in GT or NDP if a single one of those 'leaders' would have done the right thing as our Maxims dictate? Who can name a decent VP in GT or NDP?

Instead, we're stuck with this crew. Looking out for themselves and their careers. Not Nike, not our consumers, and definitely not the minions.

There's a message she's trying to convey...

She has the option to stay with her current team, working for her current employer, taking charge of the changes and making herself available (although she's not really known for that - hardly anyone has seen or spoken to her, except for a few individuals).

Alternatively,

She could return to her previous employer, spend a significant amount of money at a time when she shouldn't, have a great time while her current employer's staff might lose their jobs, sign a new $X-X M/year cloud agreement with Aws for the latest shiny thing, and secure a position back there in a few years.

Clearly, she's prioritizing her career. Some people might be fine with that. Having been in global tech for over 10 years and encountering some terrible leaders, I had hoped for better. People deserve better. Let's voice our concerns during the next all hands meeting.

The tech org has ALWAYS been broken. It was never functional. Even worse, when they merged tech with digital tech’s leadership won most of the political field. Contractor bloat, expense, and general distinction have been through the roof ever since.

Just curious, not that I got a dog in the fight. But would you like this be found out the week after, maybe two weeks after. Regardless - they’re going to go up there and meet with people, however you cut it.

If they are flying business class, it’s domestic, which is heck of a lot cheaper than international business. Also, it all depends on who’s going and how long. All in all, we’re probably talking 100k. Which is a drop in the bucket.

I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. Plus it’s not like we’ve ever had a good leader in NT. The tech organization has been broken since at least 2010 when I join Nike.

Why did you keep the Technology in her title? You think the exVP of Fashion could tell the difference between an algorithm and a cache?

You mean the Cloud Technology Officer.

Dude, no one really cares about you. We're not family or friends you know. Do you think you would have done differently if you were a CTO?