Nike’s new team of top managers lined up in June to enjoy one of the great perks afforded America’s executive class: It was stock grant season.
The Nike elite were awarded thousands of shares of company stock -- worth between $3 million and $9 million at current prices -- on top of their already substantial compensation.
The regulatory filings that outline the June stock grants are silent on another detail that critics say is relevant. The lucky recipients are all white.
The CEO, the chief operating officer, the chief financial officer, the general counsel, the heads of HR, sports marketing, consumer and marketplace, and product. Not a person of color among them.
The complex issues of Nike and race and opportunity exploded on Instagram in recent days after someone opened an account on the popular social media site called “Black at Nike.” Not all the reviews were positive. Some were angry.
Since the first post on June 24, the site became a heavily trafficked and very public forum to discuss Nike’s inner workings.
The industry and mainstream press jumped on the story.
The plot thickened on Wednesday when the account disappeared.
Nike denied it played any role. “We have no knowledge of who owns the accounts or why they were taken down,” the company said in a statement. It provided comments from Instagram executives saying the same thing.
The Black At Nike blowup illustrates how the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement has shifted the landscape for Corporate America. Suddenly, the racial mix among the C-level executives is an issue for every major corporation.
It is a particularly sensitive area for sports footwear and apparel companies like Nike and Adidas, which rely on Black athletes and Black culture to market their products. The scathing comments of purported Nike employees are particularly jarring given Nike’s masterful ad campaigns calling for equality and fairness.
Danny Tawiah was one of several Black managers Nike let go during a turbulent housecleaning in 2017-18. The gap between Nike’s messaging and employees’ daily reality is wide, he said.
“The subtle yet potent way institutional racism curbs upwards mobility for people of color in corporate America is real,” he wrote in an open letter to Nike he published last month. “Nike, you have the power and the means to be the change that you promote in your seductive campaigns in support of the black community.”
Vada Manager knows about corporate image issues. He worked for Nike in the 1990s in its communications operation when it was under fire for the working conditions in the Asian factories that manufactured its shoes. Now a management consultant, Manager said companies all over the country are feeling new pressures similar to Nike.
“People and employees with common interests are organizing more than ever to address their grievances, further emboldened by various grassroots movements and explosion of smart phone/social media usage,” Manager said. “People have seen certain results from being organized rather than languishing in passivity.”
Companies that fail to find common ground with critics on diversity and other issues may find their customers and their boards stepping in to force change, he added.
The current tempest got started in late June. The newly created Instagram account was dubbed a forum for "Black voices from current and former Nike employees."
Many recounted the slights and so-called “microaggressions” due to their hair, their clothes, their look. There were complaints of lower pay, lesser opportunity and cultural appropriation, or as one poster called it, “racial capitalism.”
“The SNKRS leadership team is predominantly driven by white males (whose) sole focus is finding ways to gamify and peddle Black culture to the white mainstream,” one poster wrote.
Nike officials argue that few corporations in the world have done more to foster diversity and inclusion. More than 21% of its total U.S. employees in 2019 were Black, vs 42.6% white. The balance were Asian, Latino or some other ethnicity.
It’s a much different picture at the executive level. Among vice presidents or higher, 9.9% of Nike’s U.S. employees were Black, 77.1% were white.
Nike officials point out that Craig Williams, president and CEO of the Jordan Brand, Scott Uzzel, president of Converse, and Melanie Harris, vice president for strategy and a member of Nike’s executive leadership team, are Black.
Nike isn’t the only company taking heat. At Adidas’ North American headquarters in North Portland, a handful of Black employees confronted management this spring. And when they got no satisfaction, some started picketing the company during their lunch hour.
The extraordinary confrontation led to an equally extraordinary public mea culpa by the company. Adidas even saluted the employees who had instigated the protests.
“Our Black co-workers have shown us through their words and actions what leadership looks like, and the changes adidas can make,” the company said in a June statement.
Adidas said it will spend $120 million over the next four years on a series of initiatives to increase opportunities for people of color. It will also finance 50 scholarships each year for Black students at its partner schools.
Julia Bond, one of the leaders of the Adidas protest, said the anonymous social media posts will do little to force change. There’s no substitute for direct action, she said.
Aric Armon, another of the leaders of the Adidas protests, has watched the Black At Nike episode closely.
“I don’t take any joy in this happening,” he said. “But I am glad it’s all coming out. The lack of pay, the lack of advancement, it’s an industry wide problem.”
Echoing Armon’s sentiments is none other than John Donahoe, Nike’s chief executive. Nike, like Adidas, has pledged big donations -- $40 million to be exact -- on a number of initiatives to support the Black community. But that’s not enough, Donahue said in a June memo to employees.
He said he’d heard repeatedly in his initial meetings with employees about the lack of opportunity for people of color.
“Our most important priority is to get our own house in order,” Donahoe said in a June memo to employees. “Nike needs to be better than society as a whole. While we have made some progress in recent years, we have a long way to go.”
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