Nike’s CEO Is Stepping Down

The Nike exec will be replaced by tech industry veteran, John Donahue in 2020

Nike’s CEO Mark Parker will be stepping down from his role after a 13-year tenure that began in 2006. The announcement came a mere hours after Under Armour announced that its founder and CEO Kevin Plank would be stepping down from his position as CEO. Parker will be replaced by Nike’s board member John Donahue from January 13, 2020. Donahue, currently CEO of cloud-computing company ServiceNow, chairman of PayPal Holdings and former CEO of eBay, will continue to drive Nike’s digital transformation with his expertise in digital commerce and technology.

Mark Parker first joined Nike in 1979 and worked his way up the ranks and was named CEO in 2006. Although having lead through a period of profitable sales growth, the exec has been under scrutiny for several major company scandals in the last two years, including allegations that the world’s largest sportswear brand promoted gender inequality. The announcement came as a surprise as in 2018, Nike had confirmed that Mike Parker to remain CEO ‘beyond 2020’.