Nike’s Master Craftsman

CEO Mark Parker, an introverted sneaker designer, has doubled revenues and profits for the footwear and apparel powerhouse and boosted its stock price six fold. Here’s how he plans to keep the winning streak alive.

- Adam Lashinsky

"It's about time the media discovered Mark Parker,” says Phil Knight. “It’s like, where have you been? He has been a nine-year sensation.”

So begins an interview with the legendary co-founder of Nike, the 77-year-old former accountant who commissioned the ubiquitous “swoosh” logo for $35 and then built a global sneaker empire around it. Knight is still chairman of Nike, but he doesn’t talk much anymore to the news media. For that matter, he doesn’t do much of anything not of his choosing these days. Heck, he didn’t even bother to show up for Nike’s biannual meeting with investors, a mid-October celebration of his company’s accomplishments. At that gathering Knight’s successor, the insufficiently celebrated Parker, made an audacious claim, particularly for such a low-key CEO: He promised to boost Nike’s revenue by $20 billion—to $50 billion—by 2020.

When it comes to discussing Parker, though, Knight is more than willing to talk. Since taking over in 2006 from the outsider Knight first recruited for the job, Parker has overseen a more than doubling of Nike’s sales. To outward appearances, Knight and Parker are a study in contrasts. Knight is an MBA and still an irascible presence around Nike’s Beaverton, Oregon, corporate campus. Parker is a soft-spoken shoe designer, known for a thoughtful, if demanding, management style.