A Nike CEO bites the dust
September 23, 2024 at 2:22 p.m. EDT
The Washington Post
When John Donahoe became president and CEO of Nike in 2020, he informed shareholders that under his leadership the iconic sneaker maker was on the cusp of achieving a new level of tech-enabled prowess.
“We will transform Nike faster to define the marketplace of the future,” Donahoe wrote that summer, deploying both the anodyne language of the management consultant he once was and the cocksure techno-optimism of the Silicon Valley executive he had become. “We expect our business to reach 50% digital penetration,” he continued, meaning that half the company’s sales would be online, “and we will create a truly consistent, connected and seamless digital marketplace to match.”
Donahoe lost his job last week. After four years as Nike’s boss, he will “retire” Oct. 13 and also leave the board of directors, which he joined a decade ago. He’s being replaced by a 32-year company veteran, Elliott Hill, who had retired the same year Donahoe became CEO.
Donahoe’s demise is a familiar tale, especially in today’s environment: slowing sales growth, a declining stock price, pesky competitors, a lack of exciting new products, the sudden shrinkage of the Chinese market. But his particular case epitomizes the false promise of “digital transformation,” the assumption that everything is better if it can be delivered in bits and bytes. It also puts a lie to the notion that somehow Silicon Valley knows how to do everything better than the rest of the world. It doesn’t.
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