Nike's next CEO, Hill, brings an entrepreneurial mindset

Elliott Hill started at Nike as an intern in 1988 but steadily rose through the ranks, drawing on the values ​​of grit and hard work ingrained in him as the son of a single mother in a working-class Texas neighborhood.

Those qualities may come in handy again when Hill becomes the top boss of the global sneaker and sportswear brand next month, helping to revive the company where he has spent his entire career.

Nike announced Thursday that Hill will become its next chief executive on Oct. 14, replacing John Donahoe, who is retiring.

Its sales have faltered in recent months as more agile and innovative brands such as On and Deckers' Hoka have gained market share. Nike is in the midst of what it says will be a three-year effort to cut $2 billion in costs.

While Donahoe was an outsider (joined in 2020 after holding CEO positions at eBay, Bain Capital and cloud company ServiceNow), Hill is Nike through and through. He joined the company out of graduate school at Ohio University in 1988, after lobbying a company representative who had spoken up in his sports marketing class.

“I was pestering him for six months until he finally hired me,” Hill said on the Fortitude podcast in December. “I told him, 'everyone in my class has a job except me.'”

His work history goes back even further. Hill was born in Austin in 1963 and his father left the family when he was three. His mother set an “incredible example in terms of commitment and work ethic,” he told the podcast. Sports, he added, became a key part of his childhood.

At Nike, he held sales positions, including in the Dallas office. “I drove 60,000 miles a year, two years in a row, in an old Chrysler minivan,” he said, describing his early years selling shoes to small retailers.

After serving in a myriad of other roles, including running Nike’s team sports division and serving as vice president of global retail, Hill became president of Consumer and Marketplace in 2018. He retired in 2020.

Hill remembers a time when Nike personified innovation. He was in the room when the company debuted its iconic “Just Do It” ad in 1988. Employees watching the internal presentation erupted in cheers, he said on FORTitude, a podcast featuring people like Hill who lived and worked in Dallas-Fort Worth. “If you can inspire people inside your company, you know you’re going to inspire people outside your company,” he said.

Hill did not respond to an email from Reuters seeking comment, but Nike said Hill was well-regarded internally and believed his hiring would be welcomed by employees.

Michael Jordan shoes

The Texas Christian University graduate helped lead Nike's Dream Crazy campaign, narrated by NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, in 2018. He also built relationships with key athletes, including Michael Jordan.

When Hill wanted to take the Jordan brand global, the basketball star got nervous and said he would leave one of his size 13 sneakers on Hill's desk. “I want you to think about that shoe, and if our revenue goes down, I'm going to come and shove it up your ass,” Hill recalled Jordan telling him.

Hill laughed as he described the moment on the podcast. “I said it mostly in jest,” he said, “but I understood that he believed in us and that he was going to take a risk.”

Hill and his wife, Gina, created a scholarship for Central Catholic High School in Portland, Oregon, where the couple's children attended. Hill raised money for the scholarship by auctioning off the collection of sports memorabilia he had amassed over three decades at Nike.

Laundry, a Portland clothing store that sells mostly vintage sports team apparel, partnered with Hill on the 2022 auction, owner Chris Yen told Reuters on Thursday. Yen had no idea who Hill was when he received a cold call from him. Hill told Yen he heard about the store through his son and wanted to work with him. The auction raised $2.1 million from memorabilia sales and private donations, Yen said.

“Elliott is the best possible person for the job and to help Nike win again,” he said.
Wall Street analysts hope Hill can bring some excitement back to the Nike brand.

“Product innovation at the company is still lacking,” said Oppenheimer analyst Brian Nagel, adding that “management has been reluctant” to reestablish partnerships with key retailers.

Jessica Ramirez, an analyst at Jane Hali and Associates, put it bluntly: At Nike, she said, “the culture has fallen apart.”