From Olympic Track Star to Adidas President: The Inspiring Journey with Zion Armstrong

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book, Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life, nail your goals. I'll see you there.

Got arrested, didn't manage to get away from the Alsatians. And I still bear the scars today. We were in a world of trouble. We were bleeding, I managed to run away from the cops. It was actually him getting me off the streets always brings me to tears. Unfortunately, he's no longer with us. So I broke the New Zealand under 2400 meter hurdle record. We came in the worst position you can possibly manage, which is fourth. Well, fourth sucks. And I'm talking, you're vomiting. And then my brain started going, oh my God. Prepare for the unknown. All of a sudden I was in charge of the footwear division for Alias New Zealand. I will never forget the day I went home from the office.

Welcome to Lead On Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and now executive coach to global leaders and high performers. In every episode, I bring you an inspiring expert to help you lead your life and business on purpose. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show.

He went from running from the police to running for his country. Today's special guest is none other than Zeon Armstrong. He's a former Commonwealth Games athlete who started working in the sportswear industry at the age of 16 and then later went on to become the president of Adidas North America. You're going to absolutely love today's special episode.

Zeon, a huge welcome to the Lead On Purpose podcast.

Thanks, James. Appreciate it.

I'm really glad to finally sit down with you. I know that you're a very focused individual who's doing a lot of incredible things in the world. So to get this space with you, I'm feeling privileged. I want to talk a little bit about leadership today, but also more importantly, talk about your journey. We're both sitting here in New Zealand, beautiful little country in the South Pacific, but New Zealand tends to punch above its weight in a lot of things. So you started off, you grew up here in New Zealand, but somehow you ended up as president of Adidas North America. How does a young lad from New Zealand start here and end up all the way over there? What was the journey?

Fail your way up? Yeah, I like it. He was never firstly. Thank you. I appreciate being here to share my story.

I never dreamt of, you know, being in charge of a company of that scale.

And you know, school wasn't my thing. In fact if you look at my reports, they weren't the most complimentary and I was just lucky enough through sport I had an opportunity to get into the sporting goods industry.

And when I think I was 16 years old I started unloading 40 foot containers of shoes and oni hunger actually a competitor to ads back in the time or still to today.

So to say I started at the base of the industry is factual.

It's phenomenal and it's funny. I think there's one thing that you and I can share and that is that I didn't like school at all. And in fact I was a bit of a, I wouldn't say troublemaker but I got into mischief and it was my headmaster at the time that had some options with me, say detention or drumsticks. He handed me a set of drumsticks and that changed rest of my life. So was there anybody that was instrumental at a time when you were young that said hey here's some options and you picked the option and it was instrumental in the direction that you took?

Yeah, it wasn't, here's some options. I got myself into trouble. So I was 14 and I borrowed a vehicle or a motorcycle that might not have been mine. Yeah, I'm not proud of it now and I tell my kids that but I'm, I'm glad it happened because my life changed from the moment, well a couple of weeks after I got caught so got arrested, didn't manage to get away from the Alsatians and I still bear the scars today. So I managed to run away from the cops as they were chasing me in the middle of the night and I was young, 14 and lets just say German shepherds are very fast. And it was a few weeks later.

I was at home and I saw the undercover police car pull into the driveway and there was a giant of a man hopped out and had the full on police uniform. So not just a normal cop but I could see he was high up and there was a knock on the door and.

Short version, he was the chief of police of West Auckland and he was also the local track and field coach and he had heard about my ability to evade certain two legged Capture and said to my mum, I think your son may have some talent.

Wow.

So she was like, take him, get him out of the house. And I quickly realized how. How hard track and field is because he. He broke me in the first couple of training sessions. But he was someone who came at that moment in time in my life where I needed to be put in the right path. And all of a sudden, running was something that I had something to really look forward to and focus on.

It's amazing. And I look at that individual, I obviously don't know him, I don't know his name, but man, oh man, he had a massive impact on the direction because you could have kept going that direction and kept seeing him in a different way. Not so good. But he didn't have to do what he did. But he went out of his way to come to you and your parents and say, hey, this is the talent and I'm going to nurture that. How does that. When you look back on that, now that you're an adult and you've got kids, what does it say about him? How do you feel about that gentleman?

Always brings me to tears. Unfortunately, he's no longer with us, but.

He had a book written about him before. It just. Just came out just after he passed. And one of the chapters starts off with, out of all the troubled youth that I met throughout a long career and the police, one stands out in particular, that was me. You're the guy.

I'm not sure if that's a compliment.

And let's be honest, when he. When I first met him, I was like, I could run, but I wasn't, you know, I didn't have any great talent at that point in time. So it was hard work to start trying to win championships, et cetera. So for him to see something in me, and I don't know if Mum had a word in his ear saying, I'm really worried about this kid going down the wrong path. But I'm talking about day in, day out at the track club. Every weekend I was at his house working in his garden. He had this love for palms and et cetera. And I look back now and I realize that was him giving me pocket money, was actually him keeping me off the streets.

Amazing.

Yeah. So the hours, countless hours, love, attention, support that he gave me was just know, put my life onto a path that I never would have dreamt. Ended up being what I did on the professional front, let alone the sport front.

Amazing. And let's. If we stick in that phase of your life, in the sports front, you know what, what unfolded on that as he trained with him and you developed and challenged your skill sets. What unfolded?

I think one of the first thing that there's a few things that stand out for me with him is whenever I finished a hard session and I'm talking. You're vomiting, right? I was a 400 meter hurdler. Well, I wasn't at that stage, but I was growing into it. He would always say, now one for the competition. So I'd finish, you'd be knackered. And he'd say one more. And I'd go and do that one more. I'm not sure if it's the smartest thing now in modern science today. I was probably driving myself into the ground in terms of over training. But that was one piece. The second piece is there was an old bark track.

At the back of the track and field club. So you had to run through the forest and follow the bush and the trees, et cetera. And one day he said, I want you to do this six times. And there's a really steep hill at the end and it was pouring with rain, middle of winter. I was by myself and I was doing it and I saw him in the trees spying on me. And I didn't realize at the time and I'm just thinking that was a bit weird. I look back now and he was seeing if I'm doing what I said I was going to do.

Integrity piece.

Yeah, 100%. And I look back years later, I was like. So he saw I was doing the mahi by myself in the cold hard slog training. And I think that's why he also gave more to me because I was walking the talk. So yeah. And then just one day, just out of the blue, just ran a senior race and all of a sudden ran really fast and we were both pretty surprised and we started setting some goals and ended up winning the National Secondary School 100 meter hurdles and 300 meter hurdles titles and breaking the 300 meter hurdles record.

Amazing. And before we go on to that next little bit, when you won that.

What did you think about in terms of I could be doing this stuff off field and misbehaving and a life of crime, but actually I'm doing this. What did you learn about yourself in that moment?

I guess back then? To be honest.

I guess it gave you that.

That dream, I think is the right word.

I didn't realize at the time, but I was visualizing having success and winning titles. And you look now and you read all the books about this visualization. For me, it was just like, I can, I can win. And I would dream about that when training was really, really hard. So I'd kind of stopped thinking about the. The other things, you know, and I'd. Training was everything and was because I had that attention, that father figure, which I hadn't really had growing up as a kid. I had three stepfathers and in between there I was a mistake with mum and dad and I keep telling them the best mistake they ever made. And I have a great close relationship with my dad now, but at that time, Ross was my dad. So I think it was that as well that really helped me say, okay, this is what it feels like to have that attention.

As you might be aware, recently we made the decision to remove adverts and promotions from the podcast. Why? Well, your listening experience is my priority. So we decided to remove them all. And in return, I've got a very small favor to ask of you. If you enjoy the podcast and the incredible guests that we bring on, can you please follow and subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify? Please also leave me a rating and review. The reason this is so important is the more ratings, reviews and followers I get, the more the show is promoted to other incredible people like you, who really get lots of value from the show. So please do that. And also massive ask. Please share this with three other people in your life. Share the show with them directly. Copy and paste the link. Tell them you've got to listen to lead on purpose. I hope that it impacts their lives and it really helps me to grow the show. So I really appreciate it. And let's get back to the show.

I think it's amazing that you bring that up. I. I reached out to John Key maybe six years ago, and the reason I reached out to him was to talk about the teen suicide rate here in New Zealand. I was very concerned about it and wanted to know more why it was happening. And he gave me three reasons why it happens in New Zealand. And I thought, well, better fact check that. So reached out to a guy called Dr. Warren Farrell, and he consults to the White House on Boys and Men's Health. And he said, your Prime Minister's wrong, but he's also right. Those things he told you are secondary factors. The factors were like drug abuse.

Bullying on social media, sexual abuse in the home. And he says, those are secondary factors. I said, well, what's the primary factors? And you went, it's a factor. I said, what do you mean? There's one crucial thing that we pick up when it comes to children getting incarcerated or go down a slippery slope. Suicide, Social performance, academic performance. I said, what's that? He said, if there's an absent father, young boys particularly are more likely to go down different avenues, are more likely to get recruited into gangs. So when you share that story, that this gentleman come into your life and give you a purpose, I mean, that's incredible. He's potentially saved your life and for sure impacted your children's lives and future generations. So it's really amazing to hear that come to life. I've read it in books and I've talked to these scientists and researchers, but really cool to see it actually in the flesh.

Yes. I mean, again, 14, 15, 16. For me it was, man, this guy's the chief of police and he's a big guy and he's fun, you know, and. And he's helping me and he's given me attention.

Yes.

Yeah, has that word attention, which quickly became love, you know. And so I look back now, he was. He was so much more than a coach, you know, and so. Couldn't agree more. That.

Daughter, son, that, that focus, attention. And big part of the reason why I gave up my career, Adi, is to come home, to be a present father. And the key word there is present. Yeah.

Not just there. Yeah.

And trust me, I wasn't a present dad for a long time.

But yeah, it is life changing. And to think I'm just one of many probably that he gave that opportunity to as well. And that's that selfless community leader. Right?

That 100%.

Yeah. I'm sure when they are sitting on the up wherever they sit and look back, that those are the moments they can be proud of.

Absolutely.

Versus titles and jobs and money.

Absolutely. And that book you talked of, do you remember the name of it?

Just Ross Dello.

Okay. I'm gonna put it in the show notes as well. I'll get a copy. But if anyone's listening wants to get it.

Yeah.

Encourage them to go get it.

Yeah, yeah. It was interesting opening to the chapter, that's for sure.

Pretty special, right? I love it. Excuse me. Now, where did that go? So I believe there might have been some Commonwealth Games in there.

Yeah. The first one was World Juniors. Wow. So that was in.

94. So I broke the New Zealand under 2400 meter hurdle record and got selected to go to world Juniors in Portugal. Lisbon.

Wow.

And also was a member of the 4x4 team. Didn't get past the first round. And the 400 meter hurdles, but we made the final in the 4x4 and we came in the worst position you can possibly manage, which is fourth. Wow. Fourth sucks right now. Yeah, yeah. Bronzes okay, but fourth is worse. So probably the proudest moment I've got in my track career was that relay team and that record still stands today. So we obliterated the under 20 record and it's still there today. And it was a great group of guys and I was by far the slowest. So I still feel guilty that I was the one that why we didn't win a bronze medal. But that was, yeah, my first real international meet. I'd represented New Zealand, the Oceania Championships and won quite a few races. Can't remember what they were. But that gave me the, the dream of making the Commonwealth Games. And fast forward to four years later, qualified for Kuala Lumpur, which was just amazing.

What unfolded in Kuala Lumpur, Proudest moment.

I will never ever forget this, but actually walking into the stadium at the opening ceremony.

Yeah, yeah.

I always knew I was never going to be a world champion. Maybe that was the wrong attitude.

I knew I was never going to cheat. I knew I was going up against people that were potentially enhanced.

There could be drugs and whatnot, 100%.

But for me, representing your country at that level was my dream and that was what I was visualizing. Just get there and walking down there. And one of my best mates was beside me at the time, Chris Donaldson, who actually was a finalist in 100, 200. But looking around and seeing the athletes in the New Zealand team, Jonah was just beside us. There was likes of Millie Khan who was there. I'm not sure if she'd like me saying this, but the grandmother of the team bowls legend there was the Sarah Ulmers of the world. Just looking around like, oh my God, I'm with the best of New Zealand's athletes. And I didn't feel like I should be there. As in they're here and I'm here. So that was great. And then the actual race itself, I didn't follow any of the plans and ran out of my skin and made mistakes.

As often happens when we're at big moments, those critical moments.

Yeah, yeah. I used to run 14 strides to seven hurdles and then 15 strides on the way home. And there's 35 meters between each hurdle and went over the second hurdle with the same leg leading. And I was like, should have done a 15 and it should have been the opposite leg. Went out of the third hurdle again the same leg. I was like, oh my God, I'm doing 13s. I'd never run 13s in my life. You know, that's a, it's a big difference between in 14s and 13s. And then my brain starts going, oh, my God, get to halfway. And I'm, I'm actually leading. And I've got two of the fastest guys in the world in the race. And at this stage I'm just like, what do I do? How do I get back to 14s to 7? And it all just went to custard. And I still ran the second fastest time in my life, but I made a really big mistake. Had I not made that mistake, I think I would have smashed the record. But that's a. Could have, should have, would have wrote. But it just goes to show you, heat of the moment didn't have a great lead up into the games. All of a sudden, you know, halfway through the race, it's not going to plan. And I hadn't planned for it not to go to plan. Yeah. If that makes sense.

100%. Is that resilience plan there, the top two inches?

Yep. Yeah. And once it gets in your head, and that's such a technical race, it was, was a challenge from there.

Cameras are on you, pressure on.

Oh, yeah, all of the above. Yeah. So, you know, finished across the line and actually will never forget that feeling as well. Just feeling like that you'd let down your country. Yeah, significantly.

And how do you come back from that?

No, I don't think you ever do. Yeah, I crossed the line and I was, I think I started crying. And I remember two close friends were out there. Joanne Henry was doing the heptathlon and Doug Henry was doing. Sorry. Doug Perenny was doing the decathlon. And they both came up and gave me a cuddle and was walked off and I was like, ah, screwed up. Yeah.

It says a lot about you, though, because some people, when there's a strong degree of ego, and young male athletes, you know, I work with them all the time, sometimes ego is a big part of that. You don't even want to let the wall down. You don't want to show the vulnerability. So to me, it says a lot about you going, hey, I didn't perform the way I wanted to. I feel like I let my country down. It says a lot about your self awareness, but I guess there's a lot of lessons to learn in that too. So if you went back and you had to do it differently on that day, what would you do?

Well, I think the whole campaign would Be different. Right. It'd be.

Planning for the unknown. Yeah, yeah. But again, I'd never run 13s. And even in a training session, physically, I don't think it was possible. However, if you had the crystal ball look back saying, okay, what would happen if I was running 13s? How would I transition to 14s and 15s coming home? One piece is prepare for the unknown. What if the wind was different and all the rest, but I was just. That person was going to get in the blocks and just run as hard.

As I could, which most of us do. I think first time at any big event, we don't really think that there's going to be things that happen. We don't need a plan B or a plan C, but those things, I imagine when you step into the corporate world, you must have brought some lessons from that and you kind of tie them in at that.

Yeah. So the big lesson I took, not from kl, but I really wanted to be an Olympian, and Sydney was the next horizon, and I had qualified for Sydney. But New Zealand sets higher standards than the IAAF standards, so I ultimately didn't get selected.

And the learning there is. I should have set the standard higher than what the IAAF standard is. Yeah. And I knew that New Zealand was going to say, you have to be a finalist now to be a finalist in 400 meter hurdles in the Olympics. Not easy. Yeah, but I set the goal of if I can break 50 seconds, I've got a good chance of going. And I broke 50 seconds. I should have said, if I can break 49.5.

I think it's inches. Right.

It's like, well, it's, it's, it's a good, you know, couple of strides.

But it's. Mentally, I should have said, okay, prepare for the unknown. What if I do it? What if I qualify and New Zealand say the standards need to be harder? Now, that's another discussion we can have about the selection policy and process. But end of the day, I think whatever that target is. A Meyer. Yeah, yeah. Because something's going to go wrong.

And I think we can apply that to life. We can apply it to relationships. Look at the elite forces, you know, I think they're always constantly planning for the unplannable, and you're just always waiting for the unexpected ambush.

Yep.

Yeah, that's cool. Now, while you're doing this and you're, you're growing as an athlete, you talked about an onihanger, starting to unpack all these, these shoes and apparel. What was happening on that side of how Are you keeping the dollars coming in whilst you were doing your.

Your athlete? Yes, I was very, very lucky. So in leading into 98, the company I was working for at that time was going through a transition.

And at that stage, because Adias, as we'd say here, was the best track and field spikes you could get. And so I was working for a competitor. And so I just contacted the country manager of Adias, New Zealand at the time saying, hey, I want to go to the Commonwealth Games. I'm going to need time to acclimatize to the heat in Kuala Lumpur. Current employer may not be able to afford me to be away. Can I come work there?

Amazing. That's bold.

Yeah, yeah. And Craig Lawson was his name at the time, said, we don't have any openings, but said, come in and meet me. And so I went in there and I can't remember the exact sequence of events, but a couple of days later he called me back and said, we're going to create a job for you. So I'm very, very thankful for Craig for giving me that opening because I came on board and a few months later I'm off for quite a period of time to run for the country.

Did you ever ask him why? Why did he give you that opportunity? Based off the fact he had no role, then all of a sudden one got created.

I actually haven't, but still in touch with Lorce. We have a couple of beers every now and then, so next time I'll find that out. Please.

I'd love to see what he's seen because he's seen something very important and obviously he's very good at spotting talent and commitment and people with principles, because look where you've went in the company. But if it wasn't for him, you wouldn't be in the company, you wouldn't have done what you've done.

They would have got a foot in the door.

That's huge.

Yeah. So when people say luck's involved, I say, I used to say bs, but there is, man, that. That was luck.

And I always trained him. Luck. Because you reached out, you're like, hey, I work for the opposition. So to me, there was luck. But you created the luck.

Yeah, I guess if it wasn't running that well, the phone call would have been potentially a bit shorter. But catch a good guy at a right moment and create a role. And a couple of weeks later, they signed the All Blacks and the brand all of a sudden has got a chance to compete in New Zealand. That was the start of a 24 year journey with Adidas.

Incredible. And let's just chat a bit about Adidas. So you started at that point, what was your role then?

Tickrate. So my role was to call on the sports specialty stores and explain the technology in our shoes and ultimately try and get our shoes on their shelf.

But importantly, try and make sure that we are providing the appropriate information on our technology to sell to the right consumer running shoes. It's important you put the right product onto the right person. Doesn't mean your brand's always going to have that right product. And we had just started really going into the 3D gait analysis. So bringing out foot scans and actually showing a consumer, this is what's happening to your foot when you're running and providing the right type of product. And at the same time started talking to podiatrists and doctors and showing them what our product did. And I think that was a big part of the reason why Germany actually called a few years later is we became reasonably strong in the sports specialty chain where ADI had struggled in running technical products for a long period of time. So Global was curious to see what we were doing differently in other parts of the world.

Why do you think it was different here? I always think of Kiwis as being innovative and always finding solutions for problems that other people think there's no solution. How did that unfold in Adidas? Why was it different here than it was globally?

Well, it's one of the first trips. Well, my first trip with, alas, I ever had was to Vietnam and it was to a global tech conference.

And then they introduced this foot scan machine and I was like, wow, this is so much better than a treadmill. Yeah. Because I could understand what was happening when people were running. And then this was better than a treadmill because treadmill is not really showing you what's happening through the gate cycle. It's just one image. So when we brought it back and we introduced it to the places like shoe science at the time and bringing on the best podiatrists in the country and when they could see, wow, this is so much better. I was lucky again, that brilliant ADI had found this third party technology, we brought it back and we adopted it quickly. And all of a sudden we had it in five or six stores throughout the country.

Incredible.

And we're selling just as much competitors product, arguably more competitive product than our own because we were on a journey to create that authenticity as a running brand. But that was a big piece of again, a little bit of luck. But we took the innovation that was available to us and tried to commercialize that.

It's incredible. I think I've been on one of those machines maybe at like a shoe clinic or something like that before, and it's really insightful. As a customer, it's like, whoa, I didn't realize my feet did that.

Yeah, well, it's hard when some people aren't as coordinated as others and they'll come to slap and do that again. But we did the hard yards. We'd be at every marathon and sitting there and it's not fun taking people's stinky shoes and socks off and asking the glamorous side. Yes. Yeah. But it's all those sort of things that, you know, you build up and it's that interaction in the day with someone who wants to share their hard earned money to buy your product and they go and run a marathon. You want to make sure you're selling.

The right, right stuff. It's like a responsibility, right? Yeah. And that integrity piece again comes up. Right. So you're in the company, you've just started off, you're doing the specific role. Some people when they start in a company, they're like, I want to run the company, I want to get to the top. They kind of force it. They do all the courses they got to do. They do all the kind of appeasing and pleasing to work their way up. They push others aside. What was your approach? Did you go, I want to work my way up, I want to be at the top? Or was there more of a just a natural sequence of events?

Hey, James here. I wanted to take a quick moment to let you know about something. Look, I get asked to deliver keynotes and workshops for teams and companies all over the world, from London to Antarctica, from America to Australasia, from armies to small businesses to large corporates to sports teams. But I go in and deliver keynotes around the mindset of high performers, around the habits of high performers, about how we navigate change. If you would like me to come and speak to your team or speak at your conference or deliver a bespoke workshop, please get in touch with my team. Carolinejlochlan.com will be able to help. I'll also make sure that we put that in the show notes.

Survive.

First off, I think anytime you get a new job is figuring out what you're doing. I'm going through that right now. It doesn't matter what you've achieved in your career. When you start something new, you got to figure out how it all works. Not once did I ever think more about the job that was right in front of me or one step ahead. I never, ever thought beyond that again. Maybe that's a mistake. I think it is important to have a North Star, but my North Star was to try and master the job that I was in and be as good as I could at that job. And then hopefully that led to bigger things, which what she did was a lot of steps from a tech rep to a sales rep in Adias New Zealand. You know, traveling the entire country, calling on every single store in the country with plastic hurdles in the back of the station wagon, stopping at parks to train. You know, when you're driving four or five hours, I'd try and figure out where I was going to train and then hop back in the car and go in and call on whatever store it may be and wow, it was back then. It was awesome. Company car. You're traveling the country and life is good. I look back now, oh my God, I'd never, ever.

Yeah, it's hard work.

Oh, it was a lot of hard work.

But, yeah, it was just a case. And then, you know, luckily enough I had some bosses around me that would give me the, the next step up and each time you step up and all of a sudden I was in charge of the footwear division for Adias New Zealand, which is basically a third of the company.

And what age were you roughly at this stage?

24, 25.

That's amazing.

Excuse me.

Yeah, quite unheard of, I imagine.

Pretty young, but I just, I'd failed on making the Olympics. I came back and got that promotion, went to the track one night, started warming up and just knew wasn't in the heart anymore. Wow. And I think any sports person, they know that moment in time. I just straightaway it's not, I'm done. Yeah, I just packed up my stuff and walked off.

Was this a sorrow I'm grieving or is this like, hey, no, that was great, I'm done. Yeah, okay.

Just, you know, I'll never get over Sydney. That'll always be a burning. Damn it. But that day. Didn't miss it ever again.

I love it.

Maybe if I was a 100 meter runner or a shot putter and things weren't as hard as running around 400 meter hurdles. And I mean, all due respect to those athletes because they would train their asses off as well. It was a hard race. Yeah, I bet. But no, I just never had any regrets. Amazing chapters from Oceanias to World Juniors to Commonwealths to not Making the Olympics, but saw a lot of part of the world, had some great friendships and then when this promotion came up was just perfect timing. So that sort of filled the void. But I will never forget the day I went home from the office and I didn't have to go to the track for training.

How'd that feel?

Weird. I actually said to myself, what do normal people do? Had nothing to do.

Yeah.

I was like, what do you do? Yeah, what did you do? Went to the fridge and had a beer. Not a good start. So, yeah, it was just really scratching. So I just threw myself into work. Yeah. Yeah. And then I guess all the energy I had from track I didn't put.

Into my career and still maintain that, like one thing, one step at a time.

Yeah, cool. Yeah. And then, yes, how it happened is I had a, a random approach from Germany, from headquarters, which was they had heard what we were doing down under and got a phone call to come up and be interviewed to join the running business unit at our headquarters and Herzogen Aroche.

And so I went up there and had the interview and they asked me to slow down 10 times because I couldn't understand a word I was saying. And I was just, my eyes were like this pretty excited. Just over the moon, seen this headquarters of Adidas and then we own Salomon at the time and Arc Teryx and taylormade. And I was just walking in, it was like a dream come true.

And you know, a kid that failed at school miserably to then have this opportunity to move to headquarters, knowing this is the birthplace of, I think, the greatest sporting brand in the history of the world and seeing what athletes were walking in and out and the history and the, the archive is just incredible that when they offered me that job.

I was, that was a no brainer, right?

Oh, yeah. I was gone. Craig Lawson, the guy who gave me the opportunity and he won't mind me telling the story, offered me a significant pay rise, which we still have a little chuckle about today. I'm like, why don't you pay me that anyway? But I actually took that as a, again, a great sign that he didn't want me to go because we became great mates. But the business was going well, but I was 25, 26 and track was done and I thought, this is my chance to explore the world and I thought I'd be home in two years.

How many years was it till you came home?

20. There you go. Yeah. So it was interesting that the Auckland airport and mum was there and my brothers and Sisters and best friends were there and they were all crying and. And I was like, I'll be back in a couple years. And year after year, that airport team got smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller until I'd turn up and you get in an Uber by yourself and no one was there. So. Yeah. Never thought I'd be away from home for that long. And that 20 years went by in the flash.

I bet. And obviously, as the story unfolds, you end up being president of North America for radidas.

So I'm glad you put the Eddies. Yeah.

You're not quite the president of North America. I don't think I would invite the previous one in for a conversation, that's for sure.

Make sure the administrations are separated.

I like that. Although off Obama wanted to have a conversation, I'd be open to that.

That'd be one person, you know, everyone talks about. Who would you like to have at that magic dinner table? Obama would be one for me. Yeah.

And why is that?

I just think he's full of integrity. Yeah. Yeah. Just.

I think he's one of the calmest leaders that I've seen.

I think what he faced as, you know, the first black president. Yeah. And all the BS around it and.

Just the challenge he had to get there would be just fascinating. And just the way he never changed outside of going gray very quickly, which I can comprehend because I went gray really quickly.

Me too. I'm getting there.

But he would definitely be one of them.

Yeah, I agree. And I'd love to sit down and chat to him about fatherhood because I've seen him do what he did as a president, but he still had this connection with his kids and his wife and still got home for dinner 80% of the time. That's commitment. That's integrity.

I think the real boss was Michelle Ross.

I think you're right.

Yeah.

Let's be honest. So you're sitting as president of Adidas North America. What do you think when you look back, what was your number one responsibility in that role?

Culture.

Why do you say that?

Any book's going to tell you. Yeah. It's about strategy and then the execution of the strategy. And you have to have fantastic product. You have to have great talent. All of that's true. End of the day, you can have that. But if your culture isn't one that people want to be in and really enjoy, then you don't go home feeling fulfilled.

Or you can see it on their faces that they don't like being there and they're just going through the motion. And trust me, when I got to the States, we were in a world of trouble. We were bleeding. We were number five in footwear. People were leaving us left, right and center. And no disrespect to the prior team. The prior president just wasn't getting the support that the American team needed.

And so I went in there from South Korea and that we were market leaders and we're doing really well, and we had this amazing culture, but it took year after year after year to create that. And then I thought, here we go again.

And just, you know, picture this. A New Zealander who has not gone to college, which in the US Is a very important thing.

The type of college you go to.

Is pretty important there too. Yeah. So a high school dropout hasn't been in the States, does not understand the importance really, of how sports systems work in the United States. There's 27,000 high schools, and those high schools have all got fantastic sporting programs. There's high schools with $50 million football stadiums. That's not a random thing. The money involved in the importance of what it means to communities is unheard of. New Zealand just doesn't comprehend what it means.

Yeah.

And, you know, to watch your local high school baseball team on a Friday night. Small towns shut down. Every single store in the district shuts down. It's awesome. That's really, really cool. I love the patriot. Patriotism and how they support these schools and then they go to college, and that's a whole nother level. So here I am, coming from South Korea. You're. I'm in charge of the brand, so I'm not the president, and I'm like, so football's important, huh?

That went down well.

I had to be educated.

Yeah.

You know, and I was very lucky that there was some guys that set me down and. And, you know, started talking me through the importance of collegiate and then obviously NFL I knew was important, but I had no idea.

But you actually admitted that. Like you said, I don't know it.

I don't understand.

Amazing where a lot of leaders who step into roles, particularly new ones that are step up. I know it all or I have to know it all. Where did that come from? Where did that, like, hey, I actually don't. I don't know at all.

Yeah.

At the time I was lucky. I went through a couple of fantastic leaders who gave me some toolkits, and one of those toolkits was something called a new leader integration. So I promised the team that reported to me, so this is in charge of every single category. So you've got the head of US Sports, you've got basketball, you've got running, you've got blah, blah, blah. You know, we're roughly US$2 billion at the time. Then I said, after my first 90 days, I'm going to have someone who I trust implicitly to pull out what you know about Xeon. I won't be in the room. What you don't know about Xeon, what you like about Xeon, what you don't like about Xeon. What would you like more of Xeon, what you'd like less of Xeon. So I flew someone in who I knew I could trust to give me the facts, but also knew that that person could facilitate the team really opening up, and there'll be no recourse of action against individuals and say, this guy's an idiot or whatever. And having worked in Asia for 10 years, Hong Kong for five and South Korea for five, a lot of people talk about saving face and etc. In America, I think it was even more prevalent that they were really concerned about opening up too much. And here I am coming in and have at it. Amazing. Yeah.

That's refreshing, right?

Rip your boss apart, basically.

Yeah.

And I can see some of them were. I was like, whoa, is this a trick? Yeah. Well, you could see the trust levels. Like, what's going on here? Is he really trying to get me? And then somewhere, just like, this is a breath of fresh air. And it was interesting because that team, not many were around a couple of years later. Wow. And the ones that really opened up were the ones that were around a couple years later. But it was great feedback, you know, if you don't use that opportunity, especially those early times, to understand, am I on the right track or am I making big mistakes? And I said to them, guys, I need you to educate me. My job is to steer the culture, to steer the brand, to build the relationships, to get the support. Your job is to execute the plan.

Yes.

You're going to be the expert in these categories, not me. So it is a case of really getting off the dance floor and up onto the balcony, but at the same time, you've got to get on that dance floor to understand enough to be dangerous and then get out of their way. So one of the first conversations was around the NFL contract.

Pretty major.

Yeah. Not small. And we had, I think, 19 players playing in the NFL, but not one of them could show three stripes on the field because we hadn't played the NFL. The license for three strikes to be on the field of play. Wow. So first learning curve. So we sponsor these players, but they've got to tape up their boots and their gloves. So we're sponsoring them for what?

Yeah, it's madness.

Yeah. We're just burning money. Wow. We can use them in this campaign. I'm like, well, hang on. Every time we're on TV, we can't see RG3, who was one of the best quarterbacks in the time with our cleats. No, I was. Okay, well, how much are we talking about? And I think the number was 50 odd million over a period of time.

This was like a license for European.

To them just to have three stripes on the field of play. And I just laughed. You're joking, right? Like. No, I said we have to pay the NFL to allow our players to have three stripes on the field play. Yes. So I said, well, we can't be a sports brand in the United States if we're not on the football field. And by the way, saying football in American terms to the Germans wasn't different context. Oh, yeah, football's football. And for them, that's America football. No, no, the United States football. Football.

Yeah. Don't get that wrong.

That game is soccer.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I learned that really quickly. So I had to. When I was up at headquarters, talk about soccer. The word soccer came out. I could just see the daggers coming at me. But hey, that's part of, you know. So, yes, we signed the contract with the NFL and then we said, look, we. We need to be on the pre. On the field of play. And so I had to trust these. These guys are saying, we're going to go out now and get some of these best guys. And they went out and they got Aaron Rodgers, you know, Green Bay packers, that went and got Dak Prescott. Yeah. And then a couple years later, we chased this guy called Patrick Mahomes and did. All right.

Why was that important? Why did you. Why did you know that? Hey, this investment, that's crucially important. We got to do that.

Well, that was one of many. Yeah. I quickly learned after a few months that in the States, if you're not authentic in heartbeat sports, then you're never going to be able to compete, let alone win in the United States. It's such a ferocious environment of competition. There's so many good brands out there, so many great ideas. The attitude of Americans is we can do this. So very quickly. I was like, we've got to be on the football field. We've Got to be in baseball. Even if it doesn't generate big sales, we've got to be on that diamond.

There's got to be just a presence there every day.

When you go and watch the Yankees or the Red Sox or whoever it is, and if you're not on that field, you're not relevant. Yeah, yeah. And then, of course, NCAA was even more important. Of course, you know, knocking on the door of our parent company saying, I need XYZ million to go and sign the University of Kansas. Kansas is important. So the basketball team is. Yeah, yeah. One of the most storied basketball colleges in the United States. What about the rest? The basketball team is.

Yeah. Give us that.

Yep. So those are. Those are the things that took courage, I bet. And then it took the team to then really double down and make sure that we use those partners to bring to life in a unique way that consumers all of a sudden said, oh, you are that German soccer brand. And that took a couple of years because all we were known for in the United States was soccer and Run DMC and the superstar.

So as we built this first plan, we said, we want to be the brand that stands for sport and the culture of sport. And people laughed at us. I was like, we're going to do this, you know, because the culture of sport in the United States is just as important as on the field, 100%. You know, when you watch what those kids are wearing, walking into the stadium is just as important as what they're wearing on the field of play.

Because that speaks volumes in terms of influence, in terms of connection to brand.

No other country in the world was as far as advanced as New Zealand. They were all doing it now. But, you know, in my day, you turn up wearing your tracksuit because I'm an athlete. When you see what these kids are wearing or the athletes, you know, the best of them, they're wearing suits, and you name it. Walking into these stadiums, it's a huge.

Industry, and getting that right was important.

Everyone watching, what's Mahomes wearing, or what's Aaron wearing, or what is James Harden wearing?

And then they go and buy them.

And then they get on the court, okay, he's wearing this, and he's wearing this off the court. So we wanted to win on and off the court or on and off the ice, etc. So it took a long time to get that stable of partners and then to build up that authenticity and then make sure that we did it in our own unique way and not try to follow our competitors. And that was a big unlock for us that started really authenticating ourselves in US Sports. Huge.

That's really significant. And when you think about the culture, you talked about the culture, every country is different. We've got different socioeconomic, We've got different demographics, different ethnicities. America is a melting pot. You've got everything in America. Right. In terms of backgrounds. So how do you go about establishing a culture, like a high performing culture? Where do you begin and then how do you sustain it?

Yeah. And that was, I'll come to your question, one of the fastest learnings I had. I realized America's not one culture. Yes. Yeah. It's. I hate to put a number on. It's probably 30. Yeah. The culture in Florida, just a couple of states north. Yeah. And you're in the Carolinas. It's night and day. Yeah. Yeah. A couple more states north. You're in New York City. New York City's got multiple cultures. So that was the dawning upon me. I was like, wow, we are so out of touch of what it takes to win here. One product, you may need multiple messages to be able to connect with Hispanics, to be able to connect with the Midwest, to be able to connect with California. So we had to really step back and say, gary, how do we do this? You know, and where does it make sense? This product maybe doesn't make any sense for us to go hard into Texas, but it makes a lot of sense over here. So that was a big learning curve in terms of creating a culture. The most simplest you can.

Define what leadership stands for is super important. People need to be able to understand it. And I was lucky enough to be partnered with a guy called Mark King, who was the president at the time. And he was outstanding at rallying people around common purposes, but he also was outstanding making things simple. And one of our most important values was genuine care. It was that simple.

And how did you bring it to life?

Just live it, you know, live it. And it's. There was a lot of small things, you know, so just random stuff. National Pizza Day. All of a sudden there's, you know, hundreds of pizzas at the campus.

Walking the office, you know, walking the, the floor, saying hello, having fun, acknowledging mistakes and it's okay to fail.

Making sure that people knew that leaders were real. Yeah.

And not in the corner office there with the title.

We were, we were up there and we were always having fun. That's cool. And we tried to shelter them as well from the stress that we had on our shoulders. And we had a Parent company that was giving us more and more and more and more with that has immense responsibilities not only to the parent company but to our shareholders. So when you. We had to deliver when the company had started taking focus away from other parts of the world. For us to finally compete in the United States meant other countries were getting less and less and less.

So you had to step up.

We had to. And some of my closest friends were running those other regions and they're like, if this doesn't work, we fail as well. Yeah, yeah.

So there's a lot at stake here.

Really. Yeah. So a lot. I mean half my team didn't see what we were going through and you don't want to expose them to it. But if it didn't work a I wouldn't have been around and beam. The ramifications for the company could have been enormous.

And so it's important to be transparent. But also there's a point where you need to protect the well being and the focus of your team by saying, hey, I'm going to give them enough, but they actually don't need to know all this stuff.

Yeah.

So my head of HR once I became president, she was just. Without her, I couldn't have done what I achieved, actually. And my assistant and my project manager, I had three, three amazing wahinis that just. There is no doubt I could have done what I did without, without KP and Kieran Kimmy. But they saw what I went through. They were the only three that was really seeing what I was going through. The rest I tried to shelter from. So yeah, I had my moments of vulnerability with them and my team rallied around me when they could see. Some times I just stumbled upon it the other day actually. The team saw I was going through hell and back and they created this five minute video of personal messages. Wow. And that.

Yeah, that's genuine care.

That was amazing. Yeah.

How did you feel watching that?

Oh boy. Like a baby. As you watched it the other night, my daughter's like, what are you. What's wrong with you, dad? And I was, oh, it's just something that I just stumbled upon.

That's amazing.

Yeah, it was really, really cool. And that's. Those are the moments like, I can do this, I can get through it.

You know you've got something right? As a leader when you're at a low ebb and your team does something like that. They didn't have to do that.

Yeah.

That really shows that you've got connection with your people.

Yeah, yeah. 100%. You know, they Were there having my back because I was under pressure from the powers that be and they could see what I was doing and they knew it was the right path. But potentially in Europe, they couldn't see it because they didn't understand what it takes to win the States, they didn't see what we were doing and how we were winning, and they didn't understand. So the team rallying behind me was. Was just amazing.

I bet would have been the fuel.

That kept you going.

Yeah. Yeah.

And what about your Kiwi upbringing and just the New Zealand culture? New Zealand culture in and of itself is so unique and incredible. Did you bring any of that to your leadership when you were in North America?

Yes, but I think having.

20 years offshore and you have been in Europe or starting in New Zealand, then going to Europe and then Hong Kong. And when I was in Hong Kong, I was lucky enough to have 13 markets that I supported and getting to learn each of each one of those markets to a small degree. And then time and career, end of the day, stuff running through our veins is exactly the same. Yeah. And everyone reacts to the same things and comes right back to that attention that Ross gave to me. And if you give that same attention to your team or the countries that you're supporting and realize that we've all got the same blood running through our veins, we may look different, but we all inside internalize the same things and have the same concerns and same worries or same hopes. I think that's really important to always keep in the back of your mind that unites us.

Right.

And someone's always going through shit. And if you don't remind yourself of that. So every now and then someone's go, oh, this person's not performing. I'm like, have you checked in? Yeah, yeah. Are you sure they're okay? Oh, they're not, you know, not keeping up. And I'm like, I'll repeat myself. Have you checked in? Yeah. And then a couple of days later, oh, you know, there's a reason. There's something really going wrong with the family or whatever it is. So I think first, always step back and try and get out of the rat race and say, okay, is everyone okay? Is it me?

Yeah.

Am I putting too much pressure on the team? Is there too much going on? And half the time it is. I had to look at myself in the mirror and say, am I supporting enough, or am I just asking too much from the team?

So you take ownership there in that setting?

Well, it's. Yeah, but can you provide them the Umbrella. Yes. To allow them to be able to get back and thrive. And also I had a team of 12, 13, 14 direct reports, which is too much.

That's huge.

But some full speed ahead. And, you know, their world is going really, really well where we had problems in other parts of the business. So I'd spend more and more time with that individual, helping him or her and then others. Oh, he's favoring that person. I was like, no. I had to divert my attention to the areas that need it the most. And some were more junior. Yeah. Yes. And if you step up to the leadership team of a big company like that, you need to support them more. So you're always juggling and you're trying to manage it best. But I think it's really important that you have a systematic process to ensure that everyone in your front line is getting the appropriate amount of time per week, per month, per quarter, per year. With you.

You're checking in intimately one to one with them.

I had a very disciplined process of ensuring that we always met at regular intervals. Individuals had their one on one time with me no matter what.

And during those, did they have to prepare for those?

It's their time.

Okay.

And that's super important. So if James was reporting to me every fortnight, bi weekly, I had to say, because no one could understand what fortnite means. And you, strange creature using this word. Yeah. It was your time. And if you wanted to go for a walk around the neighborhood, if you wanted to talk about your next door neighbor's cat, that's annoying you. If you wanted to talk about your priorities, your time.

So you had no, like, this is what I need to get out of this. Wow. They get to drive that.

Correct.

That's cool.

Yep. So if they wanted to have it really structured, they wanted to have them PowerPoint, so they just wanted to talk. It was also great way to reduce email traffic, you know, and just say, hey, if it's not urgent, just ask me. Yeah. So every two weeks I've got 50 questions for you. I'm just bang, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no.

Oh, brilliant.

Well, it's the only way you could actually give them their time but also survive yourself. Yeah. Otherwise you're inundated with internal complexity.

That's nuts. You had to think about 13 or 14 direct reports. Did that change at any point? Did you get to reduce that down to five or six?

Yeah, I think the magic numbers somewhere around there. Right. Seven, eight maximum. But as we acquired brands, or you add in Canada on top of it, hey, I'm the one to blame. But then also there's also a global structure that you had to follow. Right Then all of a sudden half the team reported to me and half reported directly to global. That caused real challenges. So you're in my front line day to day. Today I'm seeing what James is churning out every single day. I'm super happy his boss is sitting in Germany unhappy, not seeing what that person's delivering. That was a real challenge to try and never get.

And did you ever have to step in and do a bit of cross communication?

Yeah. And those at headquarters that wanted to collaborate and you know, give joint feedback, others were like, I've got this and I'll give feedback like how can you do that when you've seen this person three times?

Uninformed feedback.

It's bs. Yeah, that's absolute bs. And I got really upset with that that they wouldn't see what that individual had truly contributed on a day to day basis. So yeah, it's not everything was perfect end of the day. Amazing company. But those simple things, internal complexity actually creates some real challenges.

I bet. And when you think about like when I think of a North American company, Fortune 500 company, one of the biggest priorities is quarterly report of revenue, profit. So when you focus on culture rather than just numbers revenue, when you focus on culture, you build great culture. Did you find it actually impacted in a positive way the revenue and the reportings?

Yes. So. And I learned quickly when I became the president of Adidas Group South Korea, we really doubled down in terms of what of our leadership values. And we doc, we spent two or three days off site and we documented them. And then myself with the front line, which is predominantly Korean, presented that to the Korean employees saying this is what you can hold us accountable to.

Amazing.

Unheard of in South Korea. I bet when you're at that level, you don't show any level of accountability or vulnerability. It's about you will do because it's very hierarchical and that's what's worked for Korean has done exceptionally well in the world and everything they touch. And I came and said no, we're going to be more about people first. And hetagata started to be shared with them and explained to them. And a couple of years later, by truly living those values and truly working closely with the labor union, our results went through the roof.

Incredible.

Absolutely through the roof.

I was culture focused. People focus over here. That starts to actually show positive signs.

Yeah, people were happier. You know, actually we're working more efficiently We're a healthier team.

We put, I didn't tell the parent company at the time, but 25% of everyone's bonus was on a corporate wellness goal.

Amazing.

So each quarter you had whatever you wanted to do, but make sure that you are, you know, whether it was hiking a mountain, running a marathon, becoming a CrossFit coach, whatever, whatever you want to make sure you're doing that. Because I was trying to get us to be more active, become more of a sports company. But I knew the healthier and fitter we were, the results would also come back in energy and work faster.

Why do more leaders not think like this?

Well, it's just, it's, it's not old school thinking. Right. It's a huge risk.

Yeah.

And people thought, if this doesn't happen, Zeon, I was like, it's going to happen. And I remember my boss flying in about a year later said, what's happened to this place? He said, the energy as you can just sense it as you come in. And he's like, people are bubbling, you can hear. I was just, everyone is happier. And again, it comes back to. I hadn't used those words at that stage in Korea about genuine care. It was about genuine care.

So I've actually lost, completely lost my train of thought, what your question was. But no, I like to go back.

To North America now and think about. Okay, so he. Tangata, the Maori word for the people. The people, the people, the people. You brought that into your senior role in Adidas.

So.

Or did they say Adidas in North America?

Yes.

Okay, I got that.

Right.

So the people, the people, the people. How did you convey that and you know, why did people feel that that was important?

Number one, I wanted them to know why I was there. Right. Again, he's a Kiwi from South Korea. Coming to be in charge of your brand, I was like, I didn't ask to be here. Yeah, I've been selected to be here. And here's what I promised to you, is I will always put people first. And here's my story. So I shared within my journey and then I shared with them, you know, after that first 90 days, new lender, integration, so they could see it was genuine. My hope that came across as really genuine. And then over time, you could see the same things cascade down to my front line. And if they weren't living those values, I was also shaping my team. I only wanted a true team. That all were doing that across the entire team.

I can walk in the walk.

Great. So when you've got 10 or 11 leaders all doing the same thing. All of a sudden the culture started really taking hold.

And behind my desk I had Heretangata, Hereta, He, Tongata. And I actually had a spirited conversation with the global CEO at the time whose view was that should be the company values. And he's right. Yeah, but I was like, no, those are my values. The company values can be everywhere else. But for me, that's when I walk into my office. This is why I'm here. Never forget where I'm coming from. Never forget the people who help me. Never forget how lucky I am to be in this job and the responsibilities I have. End of the day, yes, I've got to hit those numbers. But more importantly, if I can help change lives and support the team, the numbers hopefully take care of themselves. And they did.

It's incredible.

Well, the first year they didn't. So it was pretty stressful when this went gray. But I'm a firm believer when you build that culture, good things will eventuate with patience, persistence, purpose and consistency and resiliency.

Let's talk about that. Let's talk about the people again. So another part of the people would be your family. So when you're leading a large company, you've got a lot of responsibility. It often can take its toll at home, off field. What were some of your challenging moments when you were building this career in North America off field with the people that really, truly mattered to you personally?

Yeah, so it's, you know, when you're, when you're given this opportunity, but also when you realize the situation that we're in and also the importance to address the, you know, what we had to fix. Yeah, those first two years was a mountain of work. Now I just look back now I'm like, that was incredible what we had to rebuild and that comes with consequences. Right. Myself spent a lot of time traveling. Our son was quite young at the time. When we got there, I think it was would have been get my math right here. Yeah. Two coming up to three. A year later, a daughter was born. And you know, I'd put my heart, sweat and blood and tears, whatever the saying is, into addressing what we need to do on the work front and was way a lot. So I'm not saying that's the only reason for our divorce.

But yeah, ended up becoming divorced and the hardest day of my life was pulling out of the driveway that day.

And I mean this with respect to my ex wife, but not because of the divorce, but the feeling of let down my children yeah. Of just that horrible vomit feel that. Just. I said to myself, I was never going to be that dead. And I was like, dad, yeah. That.

I can relate to you on that. I've been through the same journey. I understand that feeling of having to leave the family unit, the funnel. That's. It's not easy.

It's. It's hard, yeah. It's. I don't know. There's not a word for it. It's just deep, deep disappointment in myself. But if it's not right, it's not right. That's right. Hopped in the car and I was like, where do I go? Didn't know where to go. I just drove, you know, and crossed the state of Oregon into the state of Washington, which was only half an hour drive. Pulled up to a shitty motel and checked in. And she said, how long do you need? And I said, I don't know. And she goes, excuse me. I was like. And then she saw my face, she goes, I'll put the kettle on. She was this lovely old lady. So I ended up parking up there and. Because. Didn't want to tell anyone and all the rest and because there's shame and.

There'S guilt and there's loss.

Oh, everything. Yeah. All of the above. Yeah. And just needed some time to, you know, try and figure out what the next steps are.

And do you go back to that principle of. I'm not thinking of the 33rd step. What's the next step?

Yeah, it was survival, Right? Yeah. And then as Mark. We mentioned Mark, the boss at the time of. Yeah, it was. It was just after Christmas and said, how was your break? Said, oh, not ideal. Sort of just been divorced. And he's like, where are you living? I said, yeah, across the way. And he was actually based in San Diego, but he had an apartment in Portland. And the next day, he rocks into my office with a set of keys and said, the apartment's yours.

Genuine care.

See, I've moved out. I've gone to San Diego. He says, it's yours as long as you need it. And I was just a mess. I was like, oh, my God, who does that? You know, There was real genuine care. I think he was actually quite happy because he loved San Diego and didn't want to be in Portland.

Bit warmer down there.

Yeah. But if King ever hears this, I'll forever be grateful for what he did for me to give me a home, because I could then actually bring my kids to a stable environment and Amazing. And have somewhere to bunk down and get through it.

Thank you for sharing that. It's not easy to sometimes delve into that stuff. Where's things at now? Where are the kids at? And where are you at with the relationship there?

Yeah, kids are down here. So I'd never thought of Christchurch. Auckland has always been my home. Before I left Offshore, the decision was made for the kids to be down here. So this is all new for me.

And so Auckland will always be where my heart is. But now, the way I'm.

Realizing that I now have the best of both islands, it takes. It's not easy to say that, especially the first few months, you're angry and bitter and at the end of the day, I'm here to be a present father. So when I have my kids, I'm always here. I try not to miss any of those times now won't always be possible, but.

When I explained to my kids that I'd resigned and I was coming home. So whilst I've shared with you one of the worst days of my life, also one of the days I'll never, ever forget, I was on Skype or Zoom, whatever it was, and said, xavier, I'm coming home. Yeah, dad. Because I was coming back every three or four months through isolation and all that sort of stuff, said, no, no, Daddy's coming home for good. I've resigned. And his face was just. He ran to get his sister and she was watching TV and didn't want to come. She didn't really understand what was going on. He was there. So. Yeah. And so not once have I regretted leaving my job. I miss my team and I miss the industry. But, you know, the most important decision was time to be a prison father.

Incredible. I love that. And I wanted to ask you a little bit as well. Now you're back in Christchurch, I'm selfishly, I'm glad you're here. It's great. It's great for Christchurch, it's great for the South Island. What are you doing? What you're doing here?

Yeah, so a few things. So I took a year off, which was a blessing. I didn't realize how wound up I was and, you know, managing a team of 10,000 plus, we're a 6 billion US dollar brand, so it was roughly 10 billion New Zealand. We were shut down. You know, we just were building an amazing new campus that no one could actually go to. We had constant wildfires hitting the west coast. You had social unrest, you had the Trump administration thing, doing what they were doing. And then, you know, the tragic killing of George Floyd just sent America into That next level of.

Upheaval and then trying to manage a team remotely and then the pressures from the board to hit numbers and then you've got port issues that you can't get stuff even into the LA ports, then you couldn't get them onto trains and you couldn't get. It was just. When I look back now, I didn't realize what we were coping with and how we managed to deliver our best year ever through that. But the hardest thing that I look back now is, you know, I had two years away from the kids and I did isolation four or five times and the team hated it because I had 14 days plowing through email.

But when I came back, it, you know, it took me, I think, till April and arrived home in January to be able to sleep properly. Wow. I was waking up at 4:00 and like, here I go again after track. What do people do? I was like, what do I do? You know, as I was writing down things I had to do and I've been away for some so long, had to reconnect with friends. My mom's very sick with Parkinson's, so trying to make sure that she's set up and reconnecting with family. My dad. I was renovating my home on Waiki then, trying to figure out what I was going to do here, was I going to buy a home here and all that sort of stuff. So while it sounded like it was a cruiser year was actually a lot. And then lucky enough to come across Kathmandu Brands and join their board in December last year. And, you know, being a board member comes with a whole new level of responsibilities. Very difficult when you have got no background of the history of the company coming into those first board meetings and you want to add value and yeah, that's pretty tough because you don't know enough about the three brands we own. You don't know enough about what's happened. So that was one of the first roles. I'm also on a board of a company in America. It's in the material space for footwear brands, so that one's is exciting. I started doing some strategic operating partner work with Les Mills International, so help them sign a deal with an amazing sports brand in Germany. So all the Les Mills instructors around the world are wearing three stripes now. I love it, but it was great to be able to help again. An amazing New Zealand company and Philip mills is that x 400 meter hurdler from New Zealand as well. And he gave me this opportunity to work with their CEO and I don't know if I've done that much for them, but I helped them get the contract.

Oh, it's huge.

So. Which is great. And then.

When my kids are at school, I was lucky enough to meet the founder of a company down here called Jamie K. And I hadn't heard of it, and after a couple of months, sat beside one of the founders that had a breakfast and they invited me out to come and see what they. They were doing. And I was just blown away. The. The quality of the product, the amazing business that they built, the humility of the founder herself, and just how they had created this amazing community around the world. And I built on just a story of 10 years ago from a farm in Canterbury. I was blown away. And I was like, I hadn't even heard of you guys and here I am sitting with you. And.

So, yeah, just been lucky enough to be invited to join them. And we're just working through that right now. And. And for me, I take this.

Probably more seriously than my prior life with Artie because it's someone's baby, of course. Yeah, yeah. It's extremely personal. And then to invite me to come and join them, I was like, are you sure this is your baby? So, yeah, I've got a lot to learn. You know, I'm only roughly 100 days into it and this it's going to take. I've always said it's going to take me at least a year to really understand everything, but really want to help, you know, take. Take this brand to the next level.

I think they're very fortunate. And the one thing I love, again, you keep bringing up is I don't have all the answers. I don't know everything there is to know, but I'm setting out to learn more.

Yeah. Yeah. And so we've got to build a plan and so that's a piece. It's dangerous to build a plan when you don't know enough. So it's been trying to pump the brakes to say, let's at least have some time on the ground to understand, but the people have been so welcoming.

So I'm bringing to the fire hose right now, trying to. Trying to get up speed.

And, you know, it's. We've got to find our yin yang is how do the two of us operate? Yeah, it's. That's. You better navigate that carefully because, you know, both of us will have ideas, but the power of two is going to be a lot better than individuals. So super excited.

And. Yeah, back in the game, I'm excited.

Yeah.

So there's no more sleep ins. It's get up and get out. Yep. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it's. And it's great to be, you know, support a New Zealand born brand, you know, here, here from Christchurch and, and again, the founders are so humble. I think she's one of New Zealand's most successful entrepreneurs.

I hope to meet her one day.

Yes, she's very shy, but I'd love you to meet her. She's, she's a powerhouse.

Incredible. And just a few last questions before we wrap up. I want to be mindful of your time, but privilege, I look at, you know, myself and yourself sitting here right now. We've got a huge level of privilege just to do what we do and to connect with people and to earn money. Not everyone on the planet can do that. Some people are living on a dollar a day. So when you were at Adidas, I understand you used your privilege in a really, in a really incredible way, along with Floral Williams to make a big difference. Why did you decide to do that? And what difference was it you were trying to make?

So with Arty and I'll also talk about Jamie K here, but at Adidas in the States or global, our mission was through sport, we have the power to change lives. And that was so powerful, so, so powerful that we were coming to work because we knew we could change lives, whether that was keeping girls in sport or just making people more active and healthy or giving back to the community. But I'd met, I was lucky enough to meet Pharrell just through normal business. And we had a collaboration with Pharrell called Human Race. And remember the first time meeting him and his team, and when you talk about a humble person, he is the epitome of humble. But at the same time, when you talk about a driven person, oh my God, just next level in terms of creativity, in terms of genuine care, but also in terms of being very, very crystal clear of what's right in this world and what's wrong. But he would listen carefully as well. So a couple of times I'd push back and he said, it's a really good point.

But to answer your question, outside of the things that we were just doing, two things stand to mind. We had this amazing event in Los Angeles called 747. One of the scariest things that I ever signed up is we wanted to do this incredible event to showcase the power of our brand across sport all the way through to street fashion. And we had innovation zones, we had live concerts, we had music studios, we had Pharrell on stage. We had. Just to name one of many. We had the best athletes in the world there. We created this cool basketball court, and we had, you know, James Harden or Damian Lillard there, and then we had Snoop playing against him and all this sort of stuff.

And Pharrell was there doing an amazing speech, as he does. And. And then he started talking to me about his lineage being from Virginia. I didn't tell him, but my great grandfather was also from Virginia.

Wow.

And he was talking about what happened to the slaves in Virginia, and I'm just keeping my mouth shut. And. And he said, I want to put this event on, called Something in the Water because we've got to give back to our people of where. Where he was from. And I said, hey, we'll support. And. And I'm thinking a year away. And I think 747 was February or March. It was the name of the event in la. And he said, great. And he said, well, can you take this basketball court and bring it to Virginia or recreate it? I was like, yeah, we can do that. Now. This. This basketball court cost us, like, a million dollars. Like, it was an incredible thing. And. And, you know, I. Sitting there and I'm like, when is it? Oh, three weeks time.

And in my mind, I'm like, you mean our support for next year, right? And he looks and goes, brother, three weeks time. So good. And I was like, okay. And I look at my team, and you can just see them just shaking the head because they're exhausted from this event. We moved heaven while the team moved heaven on earth, whatever. I can't remember the time frame, but we got it there. And we. We built this court on the beach in Virginia. But more importantly, we actually sent our entire human resources team there as well. And we offered these young kids from Virginia would never had a chance to understand what it was take to build a cv, to have conversations with recruiters to come and join us. And we showed them the jobs that we had, and we started this situation. We were actually recruiting from black neighborhoods and trying to give them a chance that they never would have had. I would have never had the chance.

They don't have that privilege.

No, they do not have that privilege. So we both were like, we are in these privileged positions. How do we give back? So that was one part. Second part was through Black Lives Matters.

One of the scariest times that I've ever experienced living in the country. I was watching TV and seeing our stores, among hundreds of other stores around the country, being Looted, burnt down. A close friend of mine owned a chain called Shoe Palace. I called him because his story is amazing. They came from the Middle east and they set up, started selling shoes in New York at a flea market with their grandfather. And they ended up opening their first store and they had a chain of 160 on stores. Just great, great people. And they were a good customer of ours and say, johnny, where are you? He said, I'm just pulling in the driveway at home. I said, you want to turn on cnn? I said, melrose is burning. And he said, I'll call you back. And he calls me back and he was in tears. And this brand new flagship store was being burnt down. My phone rings 20 minutes later. I said, I'm watching it. One of our stores has just been destroyed in New York City. And I was like, hey, our people are safe. We've got them home. Who cares? Shoes and T shirts can be replaced anyway. The Black Coalition. So 12 employees of Adidas North America came to me a couple of days later and a couple of other. We were called the trusted few. And they had a document that they presented to me that was obviously created through the situation that was happening through George among hundreds of others who'd been gone through so much violence and murder. And they presented to us how they believe us as a brand could change. Very emotional, Very emotional. I'm starting to shake now. I'll never forget seeing the courage that they had to present to me. Of course it's all virtual because we're going through Covid, but also the conviction that we had to make a stand. And a lot of companies around the world, I'm sorry, in the United States right then, were freaking out. What do you do?

So I was fortunate and privileged to be one of those trusted few that I then had to obviously take this to the board to say we've got to make a change. And it's hard for a European based company to understand what we were going through. But all you can see is through news channels. They weren't living it, they weren't seeing it, they weren't experiencing it. I was sitting there having sessions with my employees and just knowing the heartache that they were going through and these stories that were coming out. I'm just in tears listening to the stories. And I was like, okay, we have to be better. And a lot of their requests were very fair and it was truly going to make a change to their lives. Not just to them, but more importantly, how can we make a difference? The black and Latinx potential Employees for the future. And more importantly, not more importantly, as importantly, the communities, because we're happy to have these amazing athletes who are people of color and have them in our campaigns. But were we truly giving back in certain parts of communities? We were doing a lot. But could we be done more? Yes. The answer was yes. So short version was up to me to present to the board of some amazing ideas and some areas that were going to really push the status quo of us into a space that we were uncomfortable. And I thought, this is either going to be the last day of my career in the company or it's going to have some impact. Or if we can get everything we want, it could really, really change the way that we recruit, retain, attract, and give back to communities. And we got everything we asked for, plus some. So the board actually added another 20 million on top of the 100 million that I was asking for, which is over five year period. So he had to divide it up, which is one piece. But I swore to the team in the black coalition, this is not about writing a check. There's no way I'm just going to write a check and say, we've done our job. We now need to create this plan of how we're going to invest this and how we're going to have correction action matrixes of how we're going to address employee issues, how we're going to recruit differently, how we're going to have a much better representation of black and latinx people in our company. And we set some pretty audacious goals. And then it was a case of because athletes and the artists like Pharrell and among others were saying, what are you guys doing?

Show us the results.

Yeah, what are you going to do about this situation? And I remember him saying, because he say, brother, brother, what is Adidas going to do? I know I believe in you. I trust you. I know you're working hard towards this, but if they don't, I will leave. Among others. Among others. We had. It was a really defining moment and I could sense it. I'm not sure everyone sensed it around the world. And I was like, I'm going to give it my best. And came back and said, we've got it. So then we carved off $10 million with Pharrell. We came up with a plan called black ambition, and we decided that we were going to go out and basically create a shark tank. And Pharrell had his team of amazing brains on this, that we're going to go out to these communities. You're going to come to us and you're going to pitch your idea and the best ideas are going to be supported. But we had to be year after year after year after year after year. Can't be his $10 million. We're done. We're like, how do we carve this out, make it sustainable? How do we invest it? And I was lucky enough to be the person to present back to the people who won the first year.

Don't be special.

Oh, mate. Just seeing these individuals again, it was all on zoom. So it was. It was sad because we couldn't be there in pace, but seeing the tears of.

That they've got a chance to make it of someone's listening and supporting them of my God, here's a Pharrell and now Adidas. Giving me a chance. If just one of those business ideas goes on to be successful, we know we've made an impact of lives of the community for year after year after year. So that was a really meaningful moment that with Thrillon and the company. And then I had. I was presenting Major League Soccer about what we're doing and the commissioner said, hey, we want to do something as well. I said, we can't do anything. Well, what's. What we're doing? He said, ah, a bank from Japan, Softbank, I've got some money. They want to say, look, I can show them what we're doing, but I think I should introduce you guys to Pharrell because what you're saying is what we're doing. So Pharrell's a busy man and said, softbank have got some Johnny Cash that they're willing to invest as well. And then he realized, he's like, you're. You know. I say, yeah, I can't do any more. So that was amazing. But, yeah, just here recently with. With Jamie K.

Yeah. What New Zealanders are going through right now is I've been away a long time, but I've never seen it this difficult. Yeah, yeah. You see the interest rates and the unemployment situation, the homelessness.

And we own this amazing nappy brand called Nupee and we had this opportunity to support a group up in West Auckland. It's close to my heart, of course. Yeah. Don't know how that happened, but I wanted to see if they were legit. Yeah. You know, it's called Nurturing Family. So went up and met this founder and her name's Taylor naismith, a young 22 year old who's just got this incredible story that's someone you should meet. And what she's done to change lives. And we said, okay, we're going to support you. And I don't think she quite understood what we're going to support with. And we gave an amazing donation of well over 150,000. Wow. Packs of. Because I said, if we do this, we're going to do it right.

Game changing.

And our founder didn't blink in. I said, let's do this. So we know that is going to help many, many families. And we're talking now. We've done the same thing down here with NEST and Christchurch. But Taylor came and presented to us in Christchurch a few weeks ago because I wanted people to hear a story and what we've done just to help the communities in New Zealand. And she said it so eloquently that really made us stop and reflect. It's not the carton of nappies that we're giving to this family that really need it. It's the money we just saved them that they can then spend that money and put in a meal on the table that night. That's when it hit us. And I was like. And she goes, you've just probably put 150,000 meals on people's tables.

That's mind blowing.

That's when it hit us. I was like, whoa. That's when it got dusty in the room and you look away. So that's. I mean, that's. That's the cool thing if you can find a company with people that truly want to give back. And I was lucky enough with Ari to do that now with this company. And Kathmandu also has amazing community outreaches. Not trying to put plugs in, but it's real.

People need to know what's going on there, you know, because people often see the revenue and see all these things, but there's real great things happening. That's why I wanted to actually have you on the show, because I believe you are a leader who leads on purpose. And I think we need more of those that don't lead with revenue, that don't lead with ego, but they lead with empathy, vulnerability and purpose.

Yeah. End of the day, again, if we can give back when you're doing well, and if we can give back, I believe in the universe and it'll come back and support it. This is not about us trying to hit another number. It's about us really trying to give back and support. That's it. We didn't ask for any pr. We didn't put anything out there. We just did it.

It's a way to do it. I'VE got one last question. That is, if we fast forward way into the future, it's your very last day here on Earth. And, you know, it's your last day and someone very young, maybe a grandchild or great grandchild, comes into the room and says, zion, how can I lead my life on purpose?

What would you say to him? Thanks for the heads up on this question.

So a couple of things. Just be you.

I've heard comments about myself, oh, he's not the Polish deck. I don't give a shit. Yeah. And I think times when I tried to be it, you get off stage. And Mark King was great. He said, buddy, just be yourself. He said, you're so much better when you're on stage and you just be yourself versus trying to read from the script. And that was phenomenal feedback. You know, I was just like, he's right. You know, and so I think, be yourself and have the courage to stand up for what's right. Yeah. And that's through Black Lives Matters. People say you had amazing courage. I was terrified.

I bet.

I thought, this is the last day of my career. Yeah. But I had the pressure, and I had the privilege to carry that pressure. So I knew it was right. If I could rewind moments in time of my last 30 years in the sporting goods industry. I just call a spade a spade now. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously you want to do it with tact and do it with grace and not offend people, but you want to go home and say, I lived how I wanted to live and spoke from the heart. Nothing else matters after that. Right. You go home, say, I, I did that, and then you don't feel good. No, no. You say.

That was amazing. Is that real? And you're like, nah, that's B.S. yeah. So I think just be yourself. Always speak from the heart. Have the courage to stand up for what's right.

I love that. Zeon, thank you so much for sharing, for showing your vulnerability, for making the time today, and I hope it's the start of many more conversations for us in the future.

Thank you, James. I appreciate the job.

Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Thank you.

Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button and I'd love if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks and leaders. It's that time to get out there and lead your life on purpose.