Nike Reckoning Includes Departure of Senior Female Executive

(Bloomberg) -- Nike Inc.’s workplace reckoning continues, with several more senior executives exiting, including a woman who’d spent more than two decades at the sneaker giant.

Helen Kim, vice president of Nike East for North America, and Simon Pestridge, global vice president of marketing for performance categories, are no longer at the company, a Nike spokesman confirmed after inquiries from Bloomberg News. Steve Lesnard, the head of running in North America, and Tommy Kain, Nike’s director of sports marketing, have also left, a spokesman confirmed. The company declined to expand on why they’d departed.

They are the latest in a slew of executive exits since March, when Nike began reviewing complaints about managers’ behavior. The departed include several vice presidents and Trevor Edwards, who as Nike’s brand president was a favorite to succeed Mark Parker as chief executive officer.

Pestridge, who according to his LinkedIn profile joined Nike in 2006, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Kim, Kain and Lesnard could not be reached either. The New York Times earlier reported on the departures.

To contact the reporter on this story: Matt Townsend in New York at mtownsend9@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anne Riley Moffat at ariley17@bloomberg.net, Jonathan Roeder

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.