Phil Knight: Founder of Nike Genius, visionary, eccentric, mysterious, and deviant... This is the impression that Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, left on the public. He single-handedly turned Nike into a symbol of American culture and a synonym for sports marketing, but his leadership remains a mystery in people's minds. Knight tried to retire three times, but fired his hand-picked successor three times. More than thirty years later, Nike is still Knight's battlefield alone. Phil Knight, the legendary leader of Nike, is one of the most eccentric leaders among Fortune 500 companies. He always wears sunglasses and displays a super "cool" image; he was a long-distance runner, and later built a tens of billions of dollars' sports empire with just $1,000; his company is a famous advertising pioneer, but he bluntly said, "I don't believe it." "Advertising"; he is at the forefront of the business world, but loves to study Japanese Zen culture and often falls into meditation; he is introverted and not good at talking, but he is good at uniting people. Nike is like a happy athletes club... Phil Knight is born On February 24, 1938. As a teenager, he was very passionate about sports and published interviews about sports in the high school newspaper. Knight graduated from the University of Oregon in 1959 with a bachelor's degree in business administration. At the University of Oregon, Knight was a distance runner and set a personal best time of 4 minutes and 10 seconds in the mile. In 1962, Knight earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Stanford University. It can be said that the study experience at Stanford changed Knight's life. For the first time, he became interested in things other than sports. It was in the small business class classroom at Stanford that Knight came up with the idea for the future Nike company. After receiving his master's degree, Knight took a trip to Japan and was immediately fascinated by the exotic Eastern culture and business models. To this day, Knight's visitors take off their shoes before entering his office, and Knight gives them a clasped hand salute when they leave. A long-distance runner who is interested in selling shoes meets a long-distance running coach who makes his own running shoes, and business sparks fly between them. Strictly speaking, as an athlete, Knight is not very good, but at the University of Oregon, he met the long-distance runner who he has regarded as his mentor throughout his life. Coach Bill Bowerman. Bowerman later became Knight's entrepreneurial partner. The birth of Nike is like a legend. A college long-distance runner who performed mediocrely but was very interested in selling shoes met a strict long-distance running coach who made homemade sports shoes to improve the students' long-distance running speed, and they had different sparks. They were dissatisfied with the existing American running shoes at the time and decided to design their own shoes. Knight once said humorously: "Since I am not the best player on the team, it is natural for me to test the shoes designed by coach (Bowerman)." In 1964, Knight and Bowerman each invested US$500. Founded Le Cordon Bleu, the predecessor of Nike. Knight met the Japanese shoemaker Onitsuka Tora at a footwear product trade fair. The shrewd Japanese was overjoyed after seeing Knight's design drawings of their new sports shoes, and immediately signed a contract with him. Designed for distribution, made in Japan. A year later, Japan sent 200 pairs of sports shoes, and the company officially started business. At that time, Knight was working as a regular accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers during the day, and after get off work, he would set up a street stall on university campuses or sports grounds to sell sneakers they imported from Japan. Knight even served as a teacher at the University of Portland until 1969. In 1971, Le Cordon Bleu's sales exceeded $6 million. Onitsuka Tiger sent people to the United States and proposed that Onitsuka Tiger purchase 51% of the company's shares and occupy two seats among the five directors. If Onitsuka Tiger did not agree to this request, supply would be stopped immediately. Bowerman and Knight couldn't bear the Japanese businessmen's difficulties and flatly rejected this unreasonable request. With their design patents, they quickly found a partner, and at the end of the year, Knight named the company Nike after the Greek goddess of victory. With industrial "outsourcing", celebrity endorsements, and campus-like company headquarters, Knight is a genius entrepreneur. As a genius entrepreneur and visionary strategist, Knight plans and plans in each of his seemingly crazy ideas. The company's overall thinking from design, technology to marketing.

Knight was once elected as "the most influential person in sports", not only because he created a number one sporting goods company with annual sales of tens of billions of dollars, but also because he led Nike to widely influence people's sports concepts. and healthy lifestyle, and wearing Nike products has become a symbol of identity and status. As early as the 1970s, Knight designed a virtualized production strategy for the company. The company still does not have a factory. Instead, it uses its own trademarks, design and development capabilities to expand production in areas with low labor costs through special licenses. scale production, while the company focuses all its resources on researching athlete needs, designing products, and marketing. Nike's "outsourcing" method of concentrating its advantages and saving management costs was later imitated by the industry and even the entire business community. Nike was also the first manufacturer to use celebrity endorsements to gain popularity. In 1973, it hired long-distance runner Steve Prefontaine to endorse its sports shoes. The hiring of Michael Jordan as a spokesperson in 1985 made Nike even more famous. The sneakers named after Jordan alone earned the company US$2.5 billion in profits. Knight subversively modified the rules of sports marketing, and now celebrity endorsement has become a classic model of sports marketing. Long before the Chinese expected a new national hero, Nike was already taking action. At the 2004 Greek Olympics track and field competition, the moment Liu Xiang became the 110-meter hurdles champion, Nike launched a series of new advertisements into the Chinese market. There was a picture like this on the TV: the starting line, preparations, Asian-skinned calves... With a series of starting movements, the subtitles read: Law 1. Asians do not have enough muscle explosive power? Law 2. Asians can’t become world sprinters? Law 3. Asians lack the momentum to win? Then the camera zoomed out, showing Liu Xiang leading the way, leaving his opponent behind. The subtitles read: Laws are meant to be broken. The ad was an immediate and huge success. Nike's advertisements have repeatedly become classics in the history of advertising. Knight requires that the company's advertising ideas should not appeal to products and sales, but should be committed to spiritual communication with consumers. In more than 30 years of continuous advertising, Nike has become a materialized sports spirit and a symbol of mankind's conquest of nature and self-transcendence. Nike's "Swoosh" logo, which represents speed and victory, is also understood as an American cultural symbol. Another thing that makes Nike unique is its corporate headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, called the Nike Campus, a paradise built by Knight himself. It's like a campus: there are jogging trails, a lake, and a soccer field. Office buildings on campus are named after outstanding athletes, such as the Michael Jordan Building, the Bo Jackson Athletic Center, and more. The building is heavily decorated with posters related to Nike and sports, reminiscent of the walls of a college boys' dormitory. On the Nike campus, everyone has a fit body. Smoking is not allowed here. Knight pays to encourage employees to ride bicycles and roller skates instead of driving. Employees will use their lunch time to do two hours of exercise in an environment full of brotherhood. work. Colleagues drank heavily together, talked endlessly about sports, and regarded themselves as active and anti-traditional figures. "Knight hopes to create a comfortable and natural working environment. He believes that the world is messy enough, and working hours should be as free as at home. It can be said that Nike is a company founded by athletes and survives for athletes. This concept makes Nike A large number of athletes and sports enthusiasts have gathered around the company, and many retired athletes and coaches have become full-time employees of Nike. Even professional players at the peak of their sports careers are fascinated by Nike's campus culture, and successful founders are hard to find. Successors' journey from a small company that started with $1,000 to a sporting goods kingdom worth $22 billion has not been smooth sailing for Nike. Over the past 30 years, Knight has retired three times and returned twice to fire his personally appointed successor. People. It can be said that Knight is one of the most eccentric leaders in Fortune 500 companies. In 1983, Knight traveled to China for a long time and handed over the management of Nike to veteran employee Bob Woodall. In 1984, the jogging craze faded and aerobics emerged. Woodall ignored this trend and continued to focus on running and basketball. Reebok, a new player in the industry, came from behind. Nike's sales fell by 6% in 1984. After returning to the company to regroup, Woodall and other veterans left the company. Later, under Knight's leadership, Nike successfully tapped Jordan and other celebrity endorsements, and it has soared since then.

In 1997, Nike had become an industry giant, controlling 40% of the U.S. footwear market. Knight believed that the time had come to let go, and he appointed Tom Clark, who had long been engaged in product development, as CEO. However, Nike soon hit the rocks again. It failed to notice the decline in U.S. consumer demand for more than $100 running shoes, amid accusations of sweatshops in Asia. From 1994 to 1997, Nike's sales more than doubled to $9.2 billion, but then stagnated and fell to $9 billion in 2000. In 1999, Knight came back. The next year, he fired Clark, rebuilt a new management team, promoted Mark Parker and Charlie Danson, who had more than 20 years of experience in Nike, to co-CEOs of the Nike brand, and recruited talents from outside. , while strengthening the supply chain system and adding new brands through acquisitions, the company has taken on a new look and is heading towards double-digit growth again. However, Knight has always had thoughts of retirement. In 2001, he began to entrust a headhunting company to select his successor from outside. As a founder who loves his brand as much as his own, Knight is very cautious in choosing his successor. However, in May 2004, choosing a successor became an urgent matter: Knight's eldest son Matthew, who worked in a charity, died in a diving accident at the age of 34. This was a heavy blow to Knight, who was approaching his seventies. According to people close to Knight, this incident made him realize that life is unpredictable as time goes by. In September of that year, Knight met again with William Perez, whom he had met once before, and confirmed him as his successor. Perez served as CEO of SC Johnson. But in less than a year and a half, Knight fired Perez in January 2006. He explained the personnel change on the grounds that the cultures of both parties were not getting along well, but in fact the underlying reason was that a man with a liberal culture The company couldn't stand the order Perez was trying to impose. After Perez, Knight appointed Mark Parker, co-president of the Nike brand, as CEO, and another co-president, Charlie Danson, as president of the Nike brand. Choosing the right successor has always been a common challenge for the heads of large companies, but for a founder like Knight who has unique personal charm and has taken the company to unmatched heights during his solo career , it is more difficult to select a suitable successor. Because he has become the soul and spiritual leader of the company, people are accustomed to listening to his advice, even if it is a noncommittal answer or an ambiguous gesture. After experiencing several twists and turns of retirement, one thing is certain is that Knight will not completely retire in a short time. He still serves as chairman, but selecting a suitable successor is his current top priority.