And while he’s looking under the covers…Trim down the GT leadership- look to cut where you have VP to VP (ineffective leaders like EC, AC, DA, TT, and more..) and put real technology leaders in place where the company can focus on core competencies delivering value to the business.
26 replies (most recent on top)
Who cares about color. Color or gende discussion has no place in a workplace. It should only be about her performance and she is a failure! How on earth Nike recruited her? Must be through who she knew not what she has accomplished. If she was that good, she would have stayed at Amazon Fashion and climbed the ladder not ran away like she did after a short tenure.
MD is useless, ineffective and definitely not a problem solver. Education by itself does not qualify you for that or PhD from CM. It will all catch up with her... Nike's YoY financial results will get her kicked out eventually. She is title hungry... and has no intention to grow Nike or develop world class organization. Another Amazon reject!
They are using acronyms because if you use full names the threads usually get removed……..
For anyone not aware: (not sure why everyone just uses the initials)
MD - Muge Dogan
EC - Eugene Cook
RL - Ratnakar Lavu
EH - Elliot Hill
Leave EC alone, he is a great leader. You all just be jealous of his swag.
It is sad when "leaders" like EC and his lackies can all WFH or remote or whatever they want, but then complain about the minions not being at their desk when they decide to grace us with their divine presence on campus...sorry EC I don't have piles of snacks and shoes at my desk like your office...I am not even allowed my own space.
Typical GT… rules for the pawns, not for the leaders. Did JL relocate too? No…EC?
All under HR (FK)’s protection
MD - yes, she is a person of color but she is not from an under represented minority group. Did she check the box, given she is a woman in tech? Probably a yes to that as well.
She is here for the résumé building. Now she can say she was the CTO of a world renowned consumer brand. Most people don’t know tech at Nike is joke. if she lasts two years I’d be surprised, but I imagine she has a pretty nice package that will keep her engaged at least for while.
I do you think it’s ridiculous that she isn’t required to relocate and spends most of her time on either PTO or globe trotting to off-sites and conferences.
Will she deliver anything? Probably not.
Worked in Digital, merged with Tech in 2019. Been in many of their leadership meetings… mostly of time they are talking non sense, disconnected from the rest of the company, all power grabbing VPs.
They all applauded RL when he did all we know he did, now doing the same to MD.
Their priorities? Their own career. Which real company would employ DA, JC, JH, TT, AC, EC, if they knew what they did to GT?
Knowing GT, there isnt a leader in the world that will satisfy them. Its like Billy Joel song, We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning.
In this case, tech has always been burning and there has never been a leader in seat longer than 4 years for the past 15 years.
I also wouldn’t trust anyone internally there because they’re either rejects kicked from the business to tech or only know NikeTech and nothing else.
It’s where careers go to die.
MD knows nothing about fashion either.
Anyone with Kohls on the resume should be gone.
The RAT set a low bar but should "not defrauding" really be the criteria to be considered a good leader?
Really don't understand people defending an absent "leader". MD's taken more PTO in her first four months than my entire team has collectively over two years. Don't mind if you take PTO if you actually deliver on something substantial at some point during your time here...which she definitely hasn't other than her reactionary all team meeting which she only did because people were calling her out on this forum for lack of ANY communication that wasn't a copy-and-paste of someone else's email.
Also, it says a lot when she'd rather spend resources monitoring this site instead of, I don't know, doing her job?
Her two...ahem...assets is all they will see....
Instead of seeing and downvoting my question about how MD is a woman of color, can you downvote while also answering it? I have genuine reasons for asking, unrelated to opinions around DEI or MD or even Nike. Thank you
The number job of a leader is to communicate. MD has held one all employee meeting in what seems like a year....is that good enough?
MD is amazing and her vision has me excited! I hope you nay sayers on in the next RIF...which is soon :)
Can someone explain to me how MD is a “woman of color”? Middle Eastern people aren’t considered diversity in the US. This is a real question I have.
@cjz+1uGsH1h4 lol.. how are you laying a decade worth of tech mishap at the feet of the person who just got here?
If I could give her any advice it would be to clean house from top to bottom. Nike overpaid for some really great tech talent who call came here and lowered their standards to match the incumbent talent.
I also fell out of my chair once when I heard a SD commit to a 2 year timeline for a project that would have taken 2 months maybe 3 at ANY reputable tech company.
It sounds like this forum has been visited by the CTO lapdogs to defend her!
She is just looking to make a splash! Spending millions on generative ai and tools for employee productivity while the Nike site takes forever to load and is impossible to search on.
How stupid it is to give millions to Microsoft to make Microsoft word give you suggestions to write docs vs actually fixing the Nike site and app. I have no words to describe these people. They are spending this money to gain glory for themselves as the money does not come out of their own pocket. The whole GT leadership spends money like it’s water.
The fact that they are the technology team and they are not laser focused on consumer experience, tells me everything that I need to know about them.
Nothing wrong with MD. Proud woman of color, and IT should all he color anyway, looking to snowy.
I agree with most of the sentiments on this site except this one.. she knows more tech and is a better leader than all the previous tech leaders rolled into one. The problem is exactly that you have spent so much time with sh---y tech leadership that you don’t know what good looks like. The fact that all our vendors see us a a su---r to be bled dry while NEVER delivering says everything you need to know about the perception of tech talent at Nike from the outside. They think we’ll fall for everything if you add the phrase of the moment (happens to be AI now, was blockchain 3 years ago) in the contract .
Maybe this is why people comment negatively on MD and other tech VPs— they don’t demonstrate what was called out in this Forbes article on Nike today.. “It’s a leader’s responsibility to set the tone and standards in the workplace, and strong leaders lead by example. The right leadership can help build an optimized workplace culture where everyone is invested in the organization’s growth. Misaligned leadership can create chaos, confusion, and a lack of employment engagement, thus affecting your bottom line,”
“Be the leader who inspires your team through your efforts to establish a healthy workplace culture. Your ability to handle hard times and situations where a leadership transition is required is your best opportunity to lead by example. Remember: change is not bad; it’s an opportunity for growth,”
It’s not just about laying people off— it’s the need to as--s what tech do you need in house to drive value— there is a lot of waste snd inefficiency exasperated by leaders whom focus on perhaps their own survival. Just replacing EH for JD dies not fix the poor Tech leadership and teammates toxic behavior and entitlement of many in the GT org. Do you really think people think Nike should focus more on tech? It should be a supporting team
Get rid of all senior directors as well. They are worthless. Also, get rid of all the directors. Also, the engineers are worthless. That will fix it! That’s the solution for everything. Just get rid of everyone! Look, we are all CEOs now! This job is so easy!
Why are you so critical of MD? She's 100 times better than RL. Could she be better? Maybe, but I'd give her 2 years on the job before grading her results.