Thoughts on who will be gone following EH’s first 100 days back?
25 replies (most recent on top)
As it happens with any mass layoff, along with a lot of rotten apples, Nike also ended up showing the door to a lot of good people at various levels. These are people who could have led to a lot of positive impact under EH's leadership. And a lot of underperforming a**-kissers still remain at the company.
CG probably realizes that if he challenges NR, he will be shown the door, just like all NR’s rivals were during the last re-org. IMO, there has been a drain of real finance leadership talent over the years and that org. do not train or reward good people leaders (in fact, it does the opposite).
Yes, MC is the finance executive they should have chosen over MF (last I saw he was the CFO of Fanatics). Just like they should have chosen EH or ES over JD. Whomever has been making the top executive decisions has set the company back years, if not a decade.
CG is decent but for some reason isn’t pulling any rank to NR which is both confusing and so frustrating to all of us who would prefer to have him driving the finance bus over her. Why he doesn’t is beyond us all….c’mon CG grow some backbone and do something. As for MF rival….do you mean MC?
Maybe EH can convince ES to come back to replace HON? He’d have to swallow his pride but he loves the brand and probably would relish the opportunity to turn the company around. Maybe give him the President title.
Nike had good leaders that they let walk out the door with poor decisions (mainly the JD hire).
I completely agree with you @1pgu+1vCBr5kn about NR in finance.
That org. is a complete mess and, like HR, they need to scrap everything and rebuild. The only competent finance executive remaining is CG, IMO. Maybe they can bring back the person they chose MF over to be the new CFO. I believe he used to oversee the Geographies finance function.
Thanks for reading EH
Next in line:
MF - because of sheer incompetence and poor team building. Add the entire procurement leadership here also on how we were swindled out by our vendors thanks to the RAT era. Enabling all the wrong investments.
HoN - CDA and the direct push. Firing everyone that warned her against pushing direct and sc--wing over our trusted partners. Enabling SB and spending tons of money on insights that delivered zero value. Cutting brand marketing. Enabling and to a certain degree creating two competitors to emerge in the vacuum of a mismanaged direct strategy due to sheer incompetence that we will pay for dearly in the foreseeable future.
HON replaced by JJ. MF out. HH replaced by MP or another similar Nike product VET.
Marketplace broken out again.
GEOs to EMEA, GC, AP and NCAM.
@3ptk+1vCBr5kn Do you really think they will hire to people who left adi as it was hemorrhaging cash who subsequently tanked albirrds for a Nike turn around?
Both of them led and looked the other way during the Yeezy Po-n / employee abuse debacle, I’d have an hard time thinking they are exactly what we need right now.
Kate maybe, Kelly no way. She’s from and has almost only worked in Coms and has like 15 YOE. I see her more of a politician than a strategic business leader of a company and role this large.
Maybe she could be qualified to head up brand, but not all of innovation, product, merch and marketplace.
@3ptk+1vCBr5kn Not sure Kelly or Kate are qualified to run Orgs that large? Adidas North America is tiny compared to Nike global.
Who takes over for HON?
Someone they bring back or someone already here?
With any luck we will shed HON, MF and MM.
@1wrl+1vCBr5kn We don’t need a bigger strategy org or to outsource to Bain, we need product and merch and sales leaders who understand brand a business and are STRATEGIC, who can build their own strategies vs needing some MbA who’s never run a brand do it for them.
HON, Matt Friend. Quite a few others in that level need to go
Entire SEC leadership should be replaced for ss. They have already secured their future with mutual benefits from termite vendor.
No loss for them, but Nike will be spared from further downfall.
Very good idea but Nike would be horrible at it based on previous learnings with Hurley and Converse.
DH is the chief strategy officer now, probably one of the few good appointments that JD did. He was at odds with the RAT in his old role in ND and I suspect he played a huge role in exposing him. They were not getting along and it was very well known in GTLT at that time.
No clue on what goes in that org thou since they are very secretive. Hopefully in an EH era we will invest more in our strategy org rather than outsourcing our strategy to bain.
Shocked no one said HON yet
You better hope NR does not take over finance. That would be terrible for us all. She’s lucky she even is where she is right now - it’s only because competent leaders left the company, leaving an opening for her. Finance doesn’t like her and the rest of the company leaders just simply tolerate her. Time to find someone out there in the industry to steer finance the right way.
@qpk+1vCBr5kn Couldn’t agree more.
I always thought the purpose of DSM was to manage demand and supply effectively and maintain a healthy marketplace. But since it’s creation, we’ve had a completely off balance between demand and supply. Seriously, what is that function even doing?
There are so many SLT members, along with their LT members that would really need to go if we wanted to clean house and start again focusing on culture and innovation. I might flip this question around and ask which should stay, why, and are there leaders that were let go that Nike should be looking to convince to come back to help with the turnaround?
Agree 100% with the below poster, DSM is not worth keeping, neither is SEC - they've wasted so much there and still give swag away far beyond "policy" but will they ever be held accountable - no!!!!
CG in merch can handle everything needed and NR in finance have a better look ahead. Maybe she'll take over some day.
Will they ever bring a COO back ... time will tell
What does Daniel Heaf do now? I thought he was supposed to be buying Nike out of the existential problem of being solely a retailer through acquisitions?
GT: beyond useless, sank billions into a portfolio that doesnt work under RAT and expanded rapidly. Now sinking deep into chaos due to reduction of headcount, overcomplicated architecture, SEC sh-tshow and lack of real talent and leadership. Fallin apart steadily.
IDSA: same story, SB wasted millions on consultants and PhD's to get nothing in return and now it is back to a skeleton crew. Unlike tech they never delivered any value to the business anyway so nothing was lost.
Legal: AM was keeping it together and now there is chaos. Still have some nice people in there with chill leaders, their gaze is on tech, procurement and HR.
Finance: MF doesnt know what he is doing and keeps surrounding himself with incompetent yes men. Finance transformation was a mess, accenture is costing us more than what we saved with that sh-tshow. geographies are severely under resourced with a huge leadership vacuum in NA.
DSM: This org made no sense before the re-org, still doesnt make any sense after the reorg. Keeps re-inventing the wheel and no one has any clue on what they are actually doing.
HR: Please dismantle the entire thing and start again, beyond saving and redemption.
MM and HR leadership needs to go.
Now that the focus on DEI is shifting back to a more rational approach, hopefully many of those who were quickly promoted solely to meet DEI KPI targets…