For Nike, bidding farewell to a CEO for 13 years, more or less means the end of an era.
On October 22, local time, according to CNBC, Nike announced that its CEO, Mark Parker, will leave in January 2020. After leaving the CEO, Mark Parker will continue to serve as the executive chairman of Nike. His successor is CEO of Enterprise Cloud Service Provider ServiceNow and John Donahoe, a Nike board member. Donahoe served as CEO of eBay and is currently Chairman of the Board of PayPal.
Mark Parker is Nike’s “elderly employee” who has been in the world’s largest sporting goods company for 40 years.
In 1979, he joined Nike as a footwear designer in the R&D department, and then gradually became a vice president and vice president of the company. Before becoming a CEO, he also served as co-president of Nike with Charlie Danson. In 2006, Mark Parker took over the position of CEO from Nike founder Phil Knight and led Nike through 13 years.
At the time, Phil Knight commented on him like this: “Mark’s achievements in promoting creativity, innovation and growth are obvious to all.”
Through the founder’s baton, and lead a company that is inevitably with founder color and relatively mature to a broader market, the difficulty and pressure can be imagined.
The CEO’s performance over the past 13 years should be seen on two sides: One side is the rapid growth of performance and stock price, and the other side is the public opinion controversy surrounding Nike in the past two years. Will Nike give the CEO a tick or draw a fork?
Good performance and innovative energy
In 2006, when Mark Parker became CEO, Nike’s share price was still around $10. Thirteen years later, Nike hit an all-time high of $96.87 on Monday (October 22) to close at $95.60, bringing Nike’s market value to $119.12 billion. Nike’s share price has risen 29% since the beginning of this year.
Supporting a nearly tenfold increase in stock prices is a steady growth and convincing performance.
On September 25, Nike released 202