Changes are afoot in the C-suite of one of the world’s most iconic sports brands. Beaverton, Oregon-based Nike announced that Tom Peddie will become vice president, general manager of North America geography, succeeding G. Scott Uzzell, who has decided to leave Nike.

Uzzell had been part of the Nike brand for a little under two years, joining after running Converse for four years as president and CEO. Converse was once a rival, but Nike purchased it in 2003.

In tapping Peddie for his new role, Nike is going back to the future. Peddie retired in 2020 after a 30-year career, but recently was brought out of retirement.

“I’m excited to welcome Tom Peddie back to North America,” said Craig Williams, president, geographies and marketplace for Nike. “No one is more qualified to lead North America’s next stage of strategic growth, grounded in sport. Importantly, Tom’s outstanding relationships with our retailers and deep experience developing an integrated marketplace will be critical to accelerating our future success.”

Nike is No. 9 in the Top 1000. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest North American online retailers by their annual web sales. In the database, Nike is the highest-ranking Apparel & Accessories retailer.

Nike veteran rejoins company as executive

Peddie will lead all aspects of Nike’s North America geography, including Direct, Digital, Sales, Marketing, Consumer Construct and Territories, among others.

Tom Peddie, vice president, general manager of North America geography, Nike

Nike Digital encompasses global sales through the retailer’s website and mobile app. Meanwhile, Nike Direct refers to the retailer’s direct-to-consumer sales, both in physical stores and online.

Peddie’s role will be effective Oct. 21. Peddie’s trajectory follows that of the new company CEO, Elliott Hill. Hill started at Nike as an intern in 1988 and spent over 30 years at the company in increasingly prominent roles before retiring in 2020 as president of the consumer and marketplace division.

Nike said it will announce the backfill for vice president, marketplace partners “soon.”

The corporate changes come at a time when the company is trying to turn around sagging earnings. Total Nike revenue in Q1 fell to $11.59 billion. That’s down 10% year over year from $12.94 billion. Meanwhile, Nike Digital sales fell even more — 20%. Q1 also marks the third straight quarter of declining Nike Digital sales. Net income also declined 28%, to $1.1 billion, in the quarter.

Nike faces stiff competition from upstart rivals

South Carolina-based Yates Jarvis, an ecommerce expert and founder of the consulting firm 2 Visions, said the new corporate team will have to work to keep Nike’s dominance.

“Nike has been attacked by swarms of newcomers for over a decade, particularly in DTC (direct-to-consumer), and we’re all starting to see the consequences of some of these organizational and positional shifts,” Jarvis said.

He added that these corporate changes are largely “preemptive” to stem further losses.

“With slowed growth, it’s not so much that Nike dropped the ball on how they make the soup; it’s that other people are making novel soups, and some of them hit,” Jarvis said, citing brands like Think, On and Hoka.

Jarvis said that all the competition online has slowed Nike’s digital growth and that he would advise Peddie to start there.

“A stronger value proposition can improve advertising metrics to regain growth,” Jarvis said.

Better advertising metrics will mean more customers, he added. He said Nike also needs more niche product to depict a cool vibe.

“Nike has to look at their segmentation approach and chunk up both their product development and marketing with more risk in approach to mimic the audacity that is considered the “vision” of their smaller competitors,” Jarvis said.

Nike can still play a volume game with their catalog, but it has to be “more experimental” in when and how it gets these ideas to market and how they are seeded within the culture, Jarvis said.

When pushing a huge catalog, DTC can become disconnected from the human side of business quickly, he added.

“Hopefully Peddie will be able to work with the organization to dial this back in for growth,” Jarvis said.

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