Female revolt at Nike produces exodus of male execs
Julie Creswell, Kevin Draper and Rachel Abrams
For too many women, life inside Nike had turned toxic.
There were the staff outings that started at restaurants and ended at strip clubs. A supervisor who bragged about the condoms he carried in his backpack. A boss who tried to forcibly kiss a female subordinate, and another who referenced a staff member’s breasts in an email to her.
Then there were blunted career paths. Women were made to feel marginalized in meetings and were passed over for promotions. They were largely excluded from crucial divisions. When they complained to human resources, they said, they saw little or no evidence that bad behavior was being penalized.
Finally, fed up, a group of women inside Nike’s Beaverton, Oregon, headquarters started a small revolt.
Covertly, they surveyed their female peers, inquiring whether they had been the victim of sexual harassment and gender discrimination. Their findings set off an upheaval in the executive ranks of the world’s largest sports footwear and apparel company.
On March 5, the packet of completed questionnaires landed on the desk of Mark Parker, Nike’s chief executive. Over the next several weeks, at least six top male executives left or said they were planning to leave the company, including Trevor Edwards, president of the Nike brand, who was widely viewed as a leading candidate to succeed Parker, and Jayme Martin, Edwards’ lieutenant, who oversaw much of Nike’s global business.
Others who have departed include the head of diversity and inclusion, a vice president in footwear and a senior director for Nike’s basketball division.
It is a humbling setback for a company that is famous worldwide and has built its brand around the inspirational slogan “Just Do It.” While the #MeToo movement has led to the downfall of individual men, the kind of sweeping overhaul that is occurring at Nike is rare in the corporate world, and illustrates how internal pressure from employees is forcing even huge companies to quickly address workplace problems.
As women — and men — continue to come forward with complaints, Nike has begun a comprehensive review of its human resources operations, making management training mandatory and revising many of its internal reporting procedures.
While the departure of top executives has been covered in news accounts, new reporting by The New York Times, including interviews with more than 50 current and former employees, provides the most thorough account yet of how disaffection among women festered and left them feeling ignored, harassed and stymied in their careers. The Times also viewed copies of three complaints to human resources.
Many of those interviewed, across multiple divisions, described a workplace environment demeaning to women. Three people, for instance, said they recalled times when male superiors referred to people using a vulgar term for women’s genitals. Another employee said her boss threw his car keys at her and called her a “stupid bitch.” She reported the incident to human resources. (She told her sister about it at the time, the sister confirmed.) He continued to be her supervisor.
Most of the people who spoke to The Times insisted on anonymity, citing nondisclosure agreements or a fear of being ostracized in the industry. Some have spouses or family members still working there.
In response to questions, Nike portrayed its problems as being confined to “an insular group of high-level managers” who “protected each other and looked the other way.”
“That is not something we are going to tolerate,” said a spokesman, KeJuan Wilkins.
In a statement, Parker said, “It has pained me to hear that there are pockets of our company where behaviors inconsistent with our values have prevented some employees from feeling respected and doing their best work.”
For Amanda Shebiel, who left Nike in September after about five years at the company, the promise to address longstanding systemic problems is welcome, but late.
“Why did it take an anonymous survey to make change?” she asked. “Many of my peers and I reported incidences and a culture that were uncomfortable, disturbing, threatening, unfair, gender-biased and sexist — hoping that something would change that would make us believe in Nike again.”
“No one went just to complain,” Shebiel added. “We went to make it better.”
While women struggled to attain top positions at Nike, an inner circle of mostly male leaders emerged who had a direct line to Edwards. Within the company, as reported n The Wall Street Journal, this group was known as FOT, or Friends of Trevor. They texted him in meetings or bragged about having lunch or dinner with him.
A charismatic and creative marketing force, the London-born Edwards joined Nike in 1992. He oversaw marketing in Europe in the late 1990s, before moving to the United States and taking over the brand in 2002. In 2013, he became Nike brand president.
Paige Azavedo recalls her first meeting in 2014 with her new boss, Daniel Tawiah, then a senior director for Nike’s digital brand in North America. She expected they would discuss digital marketing plans.
Instead, she was surprised when he talked mostly about himself and how Edwards had nominated him for a fast-track career program. “He made it clear he was a friend of Trevor.”
Multiple women, including Azavedo, told The Times they reported Tawiah to human resources for berating them in front of their peers. He was promoted to vice president last year. This month, he was among those who abruptly departed.
Reached by telephone, Tawiah declined to comment. Wilkins declined to comment on the complaints against Tawiah or his departure.
Edwards, who resigned in March but is advising Parker until he retires in August, did not respond to an email or a message left on his LinkedIn profile. A representative for Martin declined to comment.
The obstacles to advancement for women at Nike are not new and, in many ways, common in companies with male-dominated leadership. Since Nike’s early days in the 1960s, many employees have been guided by a simple ethos: work hard, party hard, get up for your 5-mile run in the morning.
The culture that evolved could be belittling to women. On the way to a work dinner in Los Angeles, two senior men debated whether Los Angeles or Portland had better strip clubs, according to a person who attended, as the women traveling with them in the van stared out the windows.
One current employee said a supervisor pushed his way into a bathroom and tried to kiss her, according to a copy of her complaint that was viewed by The Times.
Over time, many women developed a deep skepticism of Nike’s human resources services. Some avoided the department, fearing retribution or convinced that nothing would happen. Those who did seek help said they often came away frustrated.
Until last year, human resources was run by David Ayre, who was hired in 2007 by Nike from PepsiCo and reported directly to Parker.
Ayre did not return phone and email messages seeking comment.
Complaints were sometimes handled casually. The employee whose supervisor tried to kiss her in the bathroom set up a meeting with human resources to discuss it, and was taken aback when she was told to meet her representative in Mia Hamm Cafe 19 — a public space on Nike’s sprawling campus.
Regarding complaints to human resources, Wilkins said: “We’re not going to comment on individual cases, but cases are often more complicated than simply listening to one side of the story.”
While Nike believes it has a set of human resources procedures installed, those systems “have not worked consistently,” Wilkins said. “As Mark has said, we are currently reviewing and improving our practices to re-establish trust where it has been lacking and to guard against this happening in the future.”