REALIZING POTENTIAL: THE SPORTS INSPIRED STORY

CATEGORY FOOTWEAR LEADER: NIKE SPORTSWEAR – OCTOBER 08 - JUNE 11

Renew...Refresh...Remove.

This summarizes the journey of Sports Inspired. Words such as category offense or amplify sport or compete, train and express would emerge later and change Nike Sportswear forever. In 2010 Nike Sportswear was a formidable label. Product creation was enabled by some clever consumer segmentation.

“Style choice” determined a consumer segment and curation around look, taste and relationship with Nike and sport style. Were you Indie? Urban? Metro Sport or Sports Inspired? 

Sports Inspired had grown to be a $1.4B Footwear style choice and therefore the biggest category in Nike Footwear. However, this growth had come at a cost. Huge commoditized programs, very little innovation, a distinct lack of product leadership and brand dilution were some of the kinder executive commentary.

My role as Category Footwear Leader was to vision and create a strategy and lead / enable a team to realize their and the business’ potential. Renew, Refresh and Remove was the story of the next 2 years.

• New MVP
• New Creative Direction
• New Innovation
• Refreshed Product Lines
• Refreshed Team and Talent
• Refreshed Product Acumen
• Globally Appropriate Product Offering
• Removal of Older Products

We delivered new and better product plus revenues and profitability inflated. Later Sports Inspired would be broken up into the category offense. But for a moment in time I was privileged to lead the largest creation sub-set at Nike.