Converse CEO gone and biz is going to align with in Nike. Hopefully, Converse tech also gonna merge and align with in Nike that would remove lot of redundancy and add more accountability. Fingers crossed .
20 replies (most recent on top)
@cd yes, AG guy who reports to LD doesn’t know either biz or tech but his title is Engg manager and leads tech team. He used to be biz analyst 4 years back. Not sure how these guys ended up being Engg managers and leaders. Unless Nike cleans up this sh*t, converse won’t be saved.
Isn't the point of Converse to be stuck in the past? To keep making the same canvas sneaker since 1917?
It never made any sense for Converse to be a separate company, or even a company at all. It's a canvas shoe with a flat rubber sole. Why does it even have an org chart? It should take maybe 4 or five people to make sure the overseas factories keep churning out the goods.
Anyone else think this was long overdue?
The Bigger Picture
Converse has been struggling for years. Brand feels stuck in the past - same old Chuck Taylor strategy while competitors are innovating like crazy.
What I'm Seeing
Industry sources saying there were serious internal culture issues:
Toxic management style across multiple regions
High executive turnover
HR department basically protecting leadership instead of staff
Management Style Issues
Scapegoating functional teams for strategic failures
Complete disconnect from consumer trends
Old-school management that doesn't work in today's market
AC Taking Over
New CEO coming from Nike Men's division. Guy's got experience but walking into a mess - needs to fix both business performance AND company culture.
Honestly surprised Nike Inc. let this go on so long. When your brand is bleeding talent and market share simultaneously, leadership change was inevitable.
Anyone else think Converse needs a complete strategic reset? Feel like they've been coasting on Chuck Taylor nostalgia while the streetwear world moved on...
Why is Converse still existing as an sep entity on the east coast? Move them to campus or shut them down. Are they that profitable to account for the numerous corporate layering on the other side of the country?
@cd WTF, that restaurant is so close to campus and seems like dishes doesn't taste that good at all from what I've heard,one of my teammate telling me he ordered some biryani and all he got was bones but no meat in it, looks like he failed in both of the gigs as a manager and a owner lol.man this is some real bs,I've seen in the first hand there were some brilliant minds that were being let go in our org and am hearing these kind of crazy stories
@c9 yes since LD and AC are not technical leaders, this AS guy who claims himself platform engg manager survives here. All he does is restarts matillion tool whenever an issue happens. if it works works or else reach out to matillion team. Btw he works remote and owns popular restaurant “Desi bites” in Beaverton and most of the time he spends time there. Another Engg manager AG who reports LD. He doesn’t know even excel sheet operating. Expert in smooth talking. These Tech Director LD and sr director AC are the ones to blame for allowing converse tech to become disaster.
@b4+1jztgev2t you nailed it and thats true...he doesnt even SQL honestly. AS reports to LD and LD to AC. This guys AS was a contractor in our org at one point of time and harly used to manage some ETL jobs all year. His contract ended during pandemic and some how able to get thorugh and join Converse. This tell how bad the orgnization is.
Just like Reebok was in the basement of adidas and died a slow death due to lack of attention and lack of direction, Nike is doing same thing with Converse.
I see post that have Converse and Tech in same sentence. Beauty of Converse is its timelessness which means classic look.
Converse and Tech is like someone says that Monet's work is not clear crisp.
It is unholy!
Why converse colleagues assume we hate it? Agreed it’s not tech company. So did we say NO to databricks migration? We hired offshore team to do it. After that who is going to maintain and continue if no lead or architect knows it? One architect DG never did anything useful except convey messages from Nike slack groups and conferences. Obviously when anyone joins team who knows better than them becomes prey for their nasty politics.
JC is a nice guy but ran a boys club. Empowering unqualified people to make irresponsible decisions. Change was needed.
What’s with all the concern about tech? Tech this, tech that. Tech is important, but Converse isn’t a tech company.
another bad move by Nike.
The value of Converse is its independence not derivation of Nike corporation.
What is next? Converse all star with Nike max 360 sole?
Come ON!! That is soulless
I saw a post about converse tech a while back , one of the whistleblower who is part of converse team uncovered some details about how their tech leads only knows a little bit of SQL and managing their jobs for quite a long time, I wonder what value do they and their products are bringing to the table...surprisingly that post has been deleted, it's a syndicate for sure and no wonder in some orgs in gt too are syndicates especially under specific people, iykyk, yoo leadership folks sitting in the game of thrones, do you know about this rot or are you guys showing blind eye as usual... When someone whistleblower'ed something you are suppressing their voice by deleting the post
Ps: am not the actual whistleblower by the way...lol
@aw no one dislikes converse or Jared. But incompetent/ worthless analysts hiding under tech managers/tech leads roles formed a syndicate and crushing talented tech people in converse tech to save their jobs by taking advantage of leadership kindness. If tech merged with Nike, those guys get axed next Friday after it’s merging!
Need to replace him with Indian talent!
OP, the thought that merging Converse Tech with Nike Tech would make things better made me laugh out loud. Have you ever looked at a Converse org chart? Not even close the number of useless layers that Nike has. And Jared is really great. Truly cares about the brand. And now we are going to end up with yet another Nike guy who will treat this as just an assignment along the way to being the next EH.
Someone really dislikes Converse
He wasn’t in his role for more than a couple of years right? Hard to turn things around in a short period of time when the worst decisions were coming from higher up. Would love to hear from people that might know better, but from what I heard he was well liked and had been at Converse for a long time. Replacing people at Converse with Nike people isn’t well liked there from what I have gathered.
We got email this morning right! That’s not false news.
Please don’t post false news here it’s not funny and causes confusion