Redefiners
Leading with a North Star: Former Decathlon CEO Barbara Martin Coppola’s Blueprint for Bold Change
Wed, 04 Jun 2025
Born in France almost 50 years ago, Decathlon has grown into the world’s largest sporting goods retailer with over 1,700 stores in more than 70 countries. On today’s episode of Redefiners, Simon Kingston is joined by our new co-host, Marla Oates, as they sit down with former CEO of Decathlon Barbara Martin Coppola. Barbara takes us through her globe-hopping journey in leadership roles across several industries, including technology, home furnishings, food delivery, and consumer electronics before she came to the CEO role at Decathlon. She talks about the need for a clear North Star to enable transformation, creating a culture of innovation, driving a circular product strategy, and redefining Decathlon’s customer experience in-store and online. Plus, as a member of the board of directors at INSEAD, she shares her insights on how educational institutions’ next generation leaders need to redefine what skills will be needed in a rapidly changing world. We'll also hear from Pam Fitzpatrick, Global Head of Sustainability at Russell Reynolds Associates. Pam will discuss key insights from our 2024 Sustainability Report and the commitments we’ve made as a firm. Four things you’ll learn from this episode: How a North Star and guiding purpose can shape overall business strategy and leadership development How to build a culture of innovation while maintaining a clear vision of quarterly, annual, and longer-term goals How a circular product strategy impacts product life cycle from design and distribution through end of life How educational institutions and young people need to redefine the skills needed in a rapidly changing world If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like these Redefiners episodes: Paws, Purpose & Profit: A Conversation with Pets at Home CEO Lyssa McGowan Leadership Lounge: Beyond Handshakes – How to Build Trust and Transform Executive Team Performance Unpacking Leadership Lessons with Marriott International President and CEO Tony Capuano Leadership Lounge: What do top-performing teams have in common? Outwork the Competition: Jordan Brand’s Winning Strategy with President Sarah Mensah Leadership Lounge: How to develop your personal leadership brand
Chapter 1: Who is Barbara Martin Coppola and what is her background?
It's a great question, Marla. The more I advance in my career, the more I'm searching for places with purpose. And, you know, I grew up doing sport, and Decathlon is very much about democratizing sport. I really do know how sport can be beneficial for one's health, one's well-being, but also creating communities and well-being in societies.
So I joined and I have seen how beautiful it is to be working on something that you really deeply believe in. And then the other thing is I had, you know, switched industries quite a bit. And I'm a big fan actually of having impact and hopefully bringing all the best that can be brought to people, society's planet. And the role at Decathlon was very much the case.
So it's been actually a privilege to be serving for three years.
Barbara, thank you. We're going to spend a bit of time talking about the period when you were CEO at Decathlon. But before we do that, it would be really interesting to hear you talk a little about the formative stages of your career and the journey up to that point. Was there a redefining moment for you in the course of that or maybe several?
Yes. There is one moment that I remember deeply and that taught me so much. And it was when I was based in South Korea working for Samsung. And I remember I was a minority for the first time in my life. We were only two white people in a large department of Korean teammates. And I remember actually to... not understand everything that was said verbally.
During that time, I started spending a little bit more time observing and feeling the emotions that I could sense around me. It actually taught me very important lessons on leadership through influence, and also the fact of being able to do so much without completely understanding all the verbal aspects of the communication. And I also learned somehow that being different could be a positive.
You know, woman, young, I was a married back then, and somehow turning that into a positive. I was entrusted with risky projects. I had nothing to lose. And I could play by the rules in a little bit different just because of not being like everybody else. So another interesting moment of reflection on how the difference can actually be a positive.
And that power of difference seems like an incredibly topical lesson for people to relearn just at the moment. How did you know when it was succeeding, that power of being different? How long did it take you to learn that lesson?
I think it was more of a mental shift for me. Back then, I had been reporting, interestingly, to women in tech, which was very, very rare. Samsung, I was reporting to the first woman VP in the history of Samsung Electronics. And by observation, first I had examples that I could follow.
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of having a North Star in business?
Thanks, Barbara. I mean, look, we've talked about leadership. We've talked about innovation. We've talked about culture. You know, we've mentioned this in other episodes, but loyal customers are hard to find. And studies have shown that 50% of customers will switch to a competitor after just one bad experience. You've likely seen this in other consumer good companies as well.
How do you think about redefining, innovating the customer experience to create really loyal customers, both online and in your stores?
So I'll start with both Decathlon and IKEA, which have an advantage somehow because both companies are the first experience. For instance, when you start living on your own, many people go to IKEA. Yeah. And when people start doing sport, especially in Europe and Asia and other places, they actually start with decathlon. There is an emotional connection associated to that.
The issue of these companies is to actually move and evolve with people through their lives. When I was single and setting up my apartment with IKEA, right? Then later in life, I'm a mother of two. The needs are different. And then one day I'll have different needs with my husband because we want to do different things. IKEA needs to adapt to my life, to the stages of my life. Same for Decathlon.
I'm starting with a sport. Now I've got my kids. We need something else. So it's about personalizing, but over a lifetime, There is an important element, of course, in this relationship with the customer, which is what the company makes you feel. When you go and interact with these brands, every single touch point needs to be seamless and needs to make you feel something.
The values of the company, the brand, the ethos, but also rational aspects such as I'm getting what I need at the price that I need it. And I'm getting it delivered, you know, in a flawless way. So it demands quite a bit, you know, if you think about an iceberg from the company, the customers are going to see the tip.
But there is a whole thing in the company of orchestration, of excellency, digitalization, but also creative and aspects that are a lot more intangible that need to be put into place in order to have this excellent customer experience. The final thing that I would say is brands are part of people's lives today. And they can give hope or not.
And so I'm a deep believer of what a company does, not only rationally, but emotionally too. And going with, you know, people's lives and being actors, you know, in the society through the way they behave and the way they provide service to people around the world.
I love that. How exciting to have been part of two big organizations that, as you say, stick with people throughout their career. I think you did something really innovative, right, with these digital stores in 2024. And you mentioned kind of deepening consumer engagement, seamless checkouts. Maybe just tell us a little bit about the thinking behind that and how that will evolve.
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Chapter 3: How can companies build a culture of innovation?
We've seen a little bit of this theme around new studies showing that business leaders are concerned that schools are not preparing kids with the skills they need to be part of the workforce. As you think about it, as a board member on a very prestigious school, what skills do you think are necessary today?
And how do we ensure that graduates and institutions are leaning in on the right skills necessary for this rapidly changing world we're living in?
I deeply believe in the role of education more than ever. The way we educate might be changing, but the role of education continues to be as important as ever. We can learn the skills or the theory, if you will, as well, in different ways. But I think it's really important to put it into action as soon as we can. So learning a new concept, we can learn in different ways. But how do we apply it?
How do we apply it through case studies, through group work, through internships? And so getting actually this hands-on experience, I think, is really important. And that's what I see in institutions such as INSEAD. There is also another role of education, which is to learn to manage, lead people through difference.
So the diversity that we have in the world and preparing leaders for tomorrow, good citizens, means that there is also an education on understanding the differences, respecting them, and being able to lead through that.
I remember when I was in education at INSEAD, I thought some of the truths that I had were like 100% there and nobody would actually put a doubt on it until other cultures started to speak. And I saw that my absolute truth was actually not that absolute. It needed to be interpreted through the cultures and through the history and the experiences of people.
And this is invaluable once in the real world. It's actually the ability to change perspectives, the ability to work with people that are not the same as yourself, and the ability to put into practice working with people a lot of the concepts into real life.
Barbara, thank you. We've come now to a part of the Redefiner's conversation about which I hope you've been warned. It's what we call our rapid fire conversation. section. So I hope you're ready.
Are you?
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