Good morning, friends.

A few days ago, Nike announced that its CEO John Donahoe will step down next month in the midst of declining sales and a plummeting stock.

Donahoe will be replaced with Elliott Hill, a Nike veteran who is coming out of retirement to take the helm as Nike’s CEO.

Here’s what’s remarkable about Hill: He began his career at Nike in 1988 as an apparel sales representative intern and worked his way up to CEO. His story is an epic climb of the corporate ladder.

It reminded me of Joe Preston, the CEO of New Balance, who’s had a similar trajectory. Preston is a New Balance lifer who started at the company in 1995 as a senior product manager of running and lifestyle, and was named CEO in 2018.

When Preston started, New Balance was a $150-million company. Last year, under his tenure, it generated $6.5 billion in sales.

When I interviewed him, he told me that he never aspired to be CEO when he joined the company 30 years ago. He just followed his interests, which led him deeper into the athletic world, and as a result, deeper into the world of New Balance.

There are several stories like this in the business world.

— Ursula Burns joined Xerox in 1980 as a mechanical engineering summer intern to rise to CEO in 2009.
— Doug McMillon started as a summer associate in 1984 at Walmart and rose to CEO in 2014.
— Mary Barra started at GM as an intern in 1980 and became CEO in 2014.
— Ron Vachris started his career as a forklift driver at Price Club, which later merged with Costco in 1993, and he became Costco’s CEO in 2024.

These days, it’s rare to find someone who has been at the same company for more than five years, let alone more than 30. An employee’s loyalty to the employer (and the employer’s willingness to invest in the employee in a meaningful way) has waned.

But when the loyalty and the investment are both present, magic happens.

I got a taste of this when I joined University of Georgia’s independent newspaper, The Red & Black. I said I wanted to be editor-in-chief one day, and someone told me that I needed to do every job before I was well-equipped to do the top job. And that stuck with me.

I joined The Red and Black when I was a freshman, and over the next four years, I would go on to work as a reporter, associate news editor, page designer, managing editor, senior reporter, and ultimately, editor-in-chief.

It was much easier to lead the staff because I had done their jobs — I knew the pain points, and I could empathize with the struggles they faced.

It’s similar in the corporate world. If you look at the resumes of the people I mentioned above, you’ll see the same pattern: They’ve done nearly every job before they did the top job. Good advice for nearly any career.

— Polina

PROFILES.

— The man who made Nike uncool [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— The French perfumer behind the Internet’s favorite fragrance
— The woman who biked 18,000 miles around the globe
— Elon Musk’s new marketing chief
— The ‘golden bachelorette’ looking for love

PEOPLE TO KNOW.

The man who made Nike uncool: John Donahoe, a veteran technology executive and consultant arrived at Nike as CEO knowing little about sneakers and everything about server-side infrastructure and cloud storage elasticity. His first two years were a triumph, as he deftly navigated the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic and sales improved by about 25%. Donahoe flooded the market with sneakers shoppers couldn’t get enough of. Nike released more Dunks, Air Force 1s and Air Jordan 1s—models all developed around 40 years ago—in hundreds of colors, with new drops almost daily. Donahoe’s strategy seemed to be working, until it didn’t. Instead of transforming the sneaker giant into a high-tech powerhouse, John Donahoe pissed off partners and disappointed fans. (He stepped down as CEO six days after this profile was published.) (Bloomberg; alternate link)

The French perfumer behind the Internet’s favorite fragrance: During three decades in the luxury-fragrance industry, Francis Kurkdjian has created such hits as Narciso Rodriguez for Her, Burberry Her, and Jean Paul Gaultier Le Male. He is the head of his own perfume company, Maison Francis Kurkdjian, and since 2021 has also served as the perfume-creation director for the fashion house Christian Dior, a job that involves reinventing such storied scents as J’Adore and Miss Dior. Here’s how he’s trying to make his mark on the storied fashion house. (The New Yorker; alternate link)

“Respect tradition and dare to be insolent because one cannot go without the other.”

The woman who biked 18,000 miles around the globe: Lael Wilcox hopped on her bicycle in Chicago in May. Three and a half months later, she was back, having ridden 18,000 miles around the world and set what is being hailed as a new women’s record. Wilcox, 38, of Tucson, Ariz., rode east to New York, flew to Portugal and crossed Europe to Georgia, traversed Australia and New Zealand, and finished with a haul from Anchorage, Alaska, back to Chicago last week. “It was probably the most fun ride of my life,” she says. (The New York Times; alternate link)

“I never felt in any physical danger.”

Elon Musk’s new marketing chief: Angela Zepeda keeps giving herself impossible challenges. She made it cool to drive Korean budget cars. Now she’s figuring out how to position X as a place that advertisers want to be. As X’s new global head of marketing, Zepeda is stepping in to help rehabilitate the social-media platform’s reputation two years after Elon Musk bought the company then known as Twitter. Since then, many major advertisers have departed or slashed spending. Here’s how she plans to bring them back. (WSJ; alternate link)

“She loves a big challenge and I don’t think there’s a bigger challenge in the industry right now than trying to establish the X brand outside of Elon Musk.”

The ‘golden bachelorette’ looking for love: Last year, America watched a 72-year-old grandpa date 22 women on TV. Now, they get to see a 61-year-old grandmother date 24 men. Joan Vassos, a school administrator from Rockville, Md., is set to become the first lead on “The Golden Bachelorette,” ABC’s senior-dating reality show. Here’s why she decided to find love on TV. (WSJ; alternate link)

“I lost sleep the night before every weekly process of figuring out who to eliminate.”

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