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Bloomberg Talks

Nike CEO Elliott Hill Talks Turnaround, Converse Brands

11 Feb 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.672 - 5.121 Stephen Carroll

Hello, I'm Stephen Carroll. I'm in Brussels, where many of Europe's biggest decisions get made.

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5.622 - 10.011 Caroline Hepke

And I'm Caroline Hepke in London. We're the hosts of the Bloomberg Daybreak Europe podcast.

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10.391 - 15.001 Stephen Carroll

We're up early every weekday, keeping an eye on what's happening across Europe and around the world.

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15.422 - 21.634 Caroline Hepke

We do it early so the news is fresh, not recycled, and so you know what actually matters as the day gets going.

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21.698 - 27.166 Stephen Carroll

From Brussels, I'm following the politics, policy and the people shaping the European Union right now.

27.206 - 32.633 Caroline Hepke

And from London, I'm looking at what all that means for markets, money and the wider economy.

33.154 - 37.48 Stephen Carroll

We've got reporters across Europe and around the globe feeding in as stories break.

37.941 - 42.587 Caroline Hepke

So whether it's geopolitics, energy, tech or markets, you're hearing it while it happens.

43.028 - 45.03 Stephen Carroll

It's smart, calm and to the point.

Chapter 2: What innovative strategies is Nike using for the ACG brand relaunch?

407.734 - 425.422 Elliott Hill

And how do we bring something new and different to the sport. And I don't know if you saw what happened at Western States with Caleb shows up at the starting line. It's over 100 degrees out and he's wearing, you know, the radical air long sleeve top. People are looking at him like, are you crazy running in long sleeve?

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425.903 - 442.549 Elliott Hill

But it's that but it's about performance and innovation that helped him obviously win the race and set the second fastest time. So we're going to come at it through the lens of innovation, design and an attitude that I think is new, fresh and and Frankly, I believe and we believe the outdoor consumer is ready for it.

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442.569 - 449.041 Romaine Bostick

So the airflow shirt that Caleb was wearing got a lot of attention. When you look at the outdoor space, though, I mean, there are a lot of names that already dominate.

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449.061 - 449.262 Elliott Hill

Sure.

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449.282 - 460.603 Romaine Bostick

Ultra, Salomon, Smartwool, Patagonia. Is this strategy of going for that outdoor consumer, is that actually playing offense or are you catching up to the rest of the folks?

460.583 - 479.473 Elliott Hill

I think we're always on the offense. We actually have a maxim that says, on the offense always. And so the team's definitely approaching it from an offensive perspective and trying to make certain that we're coming with something new, fresh perspective. And so far the consumer's responding extremely well to the product.

479.493 - 491.914 Elliott Hill

And it's not just an apparel conversation, the same thing in the, I don't know if you saw the Alpha Fly shoe that we also launched with the, full length carbon plate and it's something new and different to the sport.

492.034 - 516.433 Romaine Bostick

I've seen a lot of these products, the Alpha Fly, the Hyper Ice, I'm forgetting a couple others, the Nike Mind. All these things come out and I am curious, these are new products and they seem like risky products. And forgive me for saying this, but it seemed like for a while, Nike wasn't taking as much risk. It was relying on your classics, your dunks, retro styles and such.

516.894 - 524.885 Romaine Bostick

Are you giving your team a little bit more of a leash to be able to sort of come up with these crazy ideas and try to make them into something?

Chapter 3: How does Nike leverage major sports events for branding?

696.462 - 708.328 Elliott Hill

The focus on sport and how we're segmenting each of the brands by sport, and then ultimately paying it off in 190 countries around the world is only Nike can do with the size and scale that we are.

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708.308 - 723.092 Romaine Bostick

When I talk to analysts on Wall Street, they're relatively complimentary of what you've done, but they are still concerned about sales growth, which is still relatively flat. They're concerned about profitability, which to a certain extent is not quite there, at least not to their liking. When do you get there?

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723.152 - 729.422 Romaine Bostick

When do you get there to a sustainable growth rate on revenue and more importantly, generating more profits and wider margins?

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729.402 - 753.985 Elliott Hill

One of the things that we've talked a lot about is what is the top line growth rate with our investors and the bottom line expectations. We're confident that we'll be able to get there. We're confident that the sport offense is the path forward. Those three brands, a portfolio of brands, portfolio sports, footwear apparel accessories, and then again, paying it off in the marketplace.

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754.085 - 769.052 Elliott Hill

And so the newness and freshness is working. We had some proof points in the last quarter, North America being back to growth, which was a strong result for us. It's our largest reporting segment. are running back to double digit growth.

769.672 - 777.903 Elliott Hill

And then, of course, our wholesale business, which is critically important to the future of our business to serve consumers wherever they choose to shop, also back to growth.

777.923 - 799.111 Romaine Bostick

So running North America was up more than 20%. Overall, North America was up 9% across the board. I want to talk about the wholesale, though. In North America, that did great. I think it was roughly about 20% as well. But there's been some criticism that maybe the sell-in that you've done is maybe too heavy into North America and not necessarily broad based across the globe.

799.852 - 814.354 Elliott Hill

The focus was across the entire globe in terms of wholesale side of the business. I think the team in North America led by Tom Petty, who's a seasoned veteran, he has the relationships. Not the singer. No, no.

814.334 - 835.397 Elliott Hill

that's p-e-d-d-i-e for for correction but he has tremendous um understanding of the marketplace the consumer and he and his team have done a really nice job getting back in with the wholesale partners and driving that level of growth and you'll start to see that across the rest of the world as well confident in the leaders that we have in place and

Chapter 4: What trends are emerging in the trail running market?

1057.421 - 1076.292 Elliott Hill

So we feel good about the work that the teams are done. And more importantly than cleanup, because I'm like, I'm tired of talking about the, I'm more about the innovation. What I'm most proud of is the growth that we're seeing and running. Training's coming behind that. You'll see it in football, global football or soccer as we roll into the World Cup.

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1076.312 - 1084.222 Romaine Bostick

I heard you say on the conference call that soccer or global football, if you will, was probably further along than some of the other sports that you're involved in.

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1084.242 - 1097.82 Elliott Hill

Yeah, and again, we talked about it earlier, those tentpole moments. The World Cup is a tentpole moment. And so our cross-functional team that comes to work every single day and focuses on the game of football,

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1098.07 - 1111.985 Elliott Hill

That team hustled to make certain when we launch for the World Cup from football, our boots, we have three really silos, three different types of players with innovation in each of those silos.

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1112.245 - 1123.977 Romaine Bostick

And it gets to this idea, too, of also curation. I mean, it's one thing to offer a wide variety of things, but in terms of in your retail channels, how much more curation are we going to see so that, you know, people kind of can be able to zero in on exactly what they want?

1123.957 - 1144.176 Elliott Hill

When you think about that marketplace that we talked about earlier, I think there's no question that we have to be thoughtful about the specific consumers that shop in each of the stores or retail partners and being thoughtful about the assortments. And we have to be much more curated so that we create

1144.156 - 1158.507 Elliott Hill

the differentiation in the marketplace, which allows each of our retail partners and ourselves to drive the revenue and profits that we need. And so there's no question we're going to be much more thoughtful and curated in the way we think about the marketplace.

1158.767 - 1176.008 Romaine Bostick

Speaking of curation, I know North America is doing great. There's still a lot of concerns about the contraction we're seeing in China. Some of the criticism has been just the model, the business model in China overall with regards to apparel is a little bit different. There was also this idea that Nike stores weren't as curated as what customers there wanted.

1176.61 - 1180.018 Romaine Bostick

When do we start to see a bit more improvement? I know you've got a new head of Asia right now.

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