EH will be fired within a year. He came in with more good will than anyone. Employees were ripe for change, and even serious sacrifices. He has squandered that. His tenure will only be known for devastating cuts, backward thinking, and the worst stock performance in more than a decade. Ceding China and Digital will be seen as complete dunderheaded moves when those are the biggest growth areas. Divesting from Tech, when that is what enables innovation in this century. Offshoring and outsourcing jobs when that could not be more politically and culturally toxic. He's had more than 2 years and things are almost inconceivably worse than could be imagined.
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He will be remembered for a lack of vision and a lack of bravery. He squandered the cultural reset he brought, with all the attendant energy of employees from bottom to top. Hindsight is 20/20, but it's pretty damn clear he should've taken out every leader that enabled the JonDon Dynasty and brought in fresh faces and fresh ideas. He lacked the courage to do so and thought shifting chess pieces and visiting with wholesale partners would be enough. He was wrong.
@cq Right on about burning HR to the ground! Awful. Leaders in HR only acting as sheep to senior leaders.
@a6 - EH should have done a lot of things from day 1, you've got that much right.
1) Yes
2) Cut the leadership layer, yes. Worker bees, not so much. We moved away from DTC, but everything still requires technology. Automation outside tech is the biggest opportunity after a ~30% haircut in tech over the last few years. That's why the majority of roles eliminated this round will reappear in ITC in 6 months.
3) What are you even talking about? HR needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt, and that's been the case for a decade.
Layoffs have never been about having too many idle workers or performance. Any low performers caught in any of the layoffs in the last decade have been entirely incidental. It's all about getting to the right savings number. That's transparent and explains why the markets are responding the way they are. You can't cut your way to putting out the best new sneaker.
Who else do they have ? Nobody. That’s a failure to develop talent.
This is the problem with nostalgia. The thought was "This is Nike, we just need to go back to the old ways, and everything will return to our historic gangbusters performance. Let's hire an old school Nike guy!"
I can see the logic, but the world has fundamentally changed since Nike was last that powerhouse. These are new challenges that need new minds and new thinking. Simply having the old guy make things the way they used to be isn't going to cut it now. That is becoming very obvious as the stock continues to sink.
EH is a salesman not a leader. Nobody needs a “I’m disappointed” pep talk. He over promised and under delivered. There was NO incentive for him to have to do well. He made enough money before this role to retire. No skin in the game other than his reputation which people will forget quickly.
The old saying goes you can’t save face and your @$$ both at the same time. He proved it!
@OP you dont know what you are talking about
Fu-k EH. He presented as authentic. Has no vision and so many of our (way smarter than him) co-workers are gone.
Shame on you. Go the f*** back to TX. Good riddance.
@a6 is the type of person rearranging the deck chairs while the ship is clearly sinking into the abyss.
Oh it says “regarded” not …
But is he still buying lunches for people in the office on Friday’s ☺️
I’m sure taking us back to the 2000’s will fix everything. It takes 18 months to get new product to market. It’s been 18 months - where’s the friggin product? Nike isn’t a wholesale company it’s a product company. Where’s. The. Product?
Take your layoff machine and fix that.
@a6 This board should not be used as an indicator of sentitment of the overall Nike population, just of a very VERY vocal minority
EH is not doing great, but it could be worse. EH from day 1 should have:
1) Repaired our wholesale relationships (which he is doing)
2) Cut/right sized Tech for the non-(digital first / DTC future) - which we are starting to see but was too slow to come. And let’s be honest folks, Tech was/still is WAY over saturated with SR DIR+ roles. Even after this ReOrg.
3) Still is SO MUCH opportunity in terms of HR (i.e. Human Resources). Just look at this board - employees HATE Nike. Let’s dig in (though Performance Excellence process) and move forward with people who CARE about NIKE future.
Cry as you might, but we need to root out the low hangers, and I’m afraid the 1400 RIF is not answering that call. Let’s get after the low performers and then reassess!
Thank fking god for finally sayijg this. Those crocodile tears are soon gonna dry up he needs to come up with another “strategy”, what a fkin tv reality show we have for an all hands.
Couldn’t agree more.
Putting CS in charge of China is a huge red flag and reflects poor judgement on part of EH. Unless he's secretly setting her up to fail... In which case it's a genius move :-) . But will come at the expense of Nikes future.