After Nike announced yesterday that Trevor Edwards, Nike brand president, had resigned his position, the brand has forced out Jayme Martin, a vice president and general manager of global categories.
While Edwards was to leave the company in August and remain an adviser to CEO Mark Parker, Jayme Martin, who reported to Edwards, is no longer a Nike employee, according to the Wall Street Journal. Martin began at Nike in 1997 and was most recently overseeing multiple Nike business categories including women’s, running, training, and basketball.
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that in an internal memo to staff announcing Trevor Edwards’ departure, CEO Mark Parker addressed reports of “behavior occurring within our organization that do not reflect our core values of inclusivity, respect and empowerment.”
Today, thanks to reporting by Sara Germano and Joann S. Lublin, it has become clear that Nike has received complaints about Jayme Martin but no direct complaints about Trevor Edwards. According to sources that spoke with the Wall Street Journal, Martin and Edwards protected male subordinates that engaged in behavior that was demeaning to fellow colleagues.
Trevor Edwards has not responded to comments and a Nike spokesman told the Wall Street Journal that the company did not discuss personnel moves.
Stay tuned as this story develops.
Source: WSJ
While it does sound like some higher-ups weren’t right, don’t overlook the fact that action was taken on them in the end. In general it can sometimes take some time to fire someone. Companies need a thorough basis and sometimes investigation before they can cut the cord. Sure enough there are twisted places (and sadly I have my eyebrows raised at some police departments), but I wouldn’t throw Nike in that bunch just yet.
With their track record, Nike has had a hard time parting ways with their athletes that have had issues with women. Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant come to mind, as there was an article in the NY Times on how Nike didn’t seemed to be bothered by the bad press that Tiger was getting, because due to their Nike’s own demo study, the kids that dug Tiger didn’t see his transgressions as being that a big deal. How women felt about this issue, didn’t really matter to Nike. Now living in the age of Trump and #metoo, yeah, the old boys network is about catch a bad one all the way around. I say that it is about time. Women have been oppressed, then subjected to abuse much longer than anyone on this planet. It is time for the complete liberation from such madness.