For decades, Nike Inc. told its customers to Just Do It. Now its designers, engineers and scientists have their own mantra: “Create epic shit.”
That mandate comes straight from their new boss, who has used the phrase in internal presentations and documents. Phil McCartney, who’s worked at Nike for nearly three decades, was named chief innovation, design and product officer in May, tasked with fixing one of the world’s largest sportswear company’s biggest problems: its stalled development engine.
“By nature, I’m pretty impatient,” McCartney says during a recent interview at Nike’s headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. “It’s OK to push some edges and try some crazy things.”
So far that means placing a primary focus on speed: Releasing items as early as 12 months ahead of schedule, launching new shoes that the company claims will stimulate the brain and developing a product for which the prototypes look like robot legs.
McCartney, 51, is hoping new products will get shoppers excited about Nike again. In recent years, the brand lost customers by leaning too hard on selling retro lifestyle sneakers, while neglecting gear that appeals to athletes. Last year, the company shed $5 billion in revenue and replaced its chief executive. Revenue has declined six quarters in a row on a currency-neutral basis and shares are down 8.7 percent this year.
Now McCartney is working to reinvigorate departments that had long ago come up with breakthroughs, like the Air cushioning system, Flyknit digital engineering and ZoomX lightweight foam.
“I see it as appropriate acceleration rather than rushing,” he says.
On this afternoon in October, McCartney is walking around an indoor track at the Nike Sports Research Lab inside the new LeBron James Innovation Center, one of the many testing facilities on Nike’s vast campus. The track is embedded with force plates that measure a runner’s foot strikes; the basketball court and turf field have motion-capture cameras to better understand athletes’ movements. Nearby climate chambers are used to study the science of sweat in different thermal conditions.
He’s eager to show off four of the newest creations — at varying stages of viability — that teams from his staff of more than 4,000 are working on. Prices and release dates haven’t yet been announced.
There’s Nike Mind, a shoe that claims to calm athletes by targeting pressure points to stimulate certain parts of the brain. The Air Milano jacket is set to debut at next year’s Winter Olympics in Italy — its all-new construction method allows the wearer to inflate and deflate the garment to adjust temperature levels. And lightweight AeroFit fabric, which uses mesh structures also to help regulate body heat, is nearing its launch day.
The most ambitious is called Project Amplify. It’s an attempt at a powered footwear system — the device springs the user forward with each step, helping them walk or run farther distances. Prototypes look like retrofitted robo-legs, but each iteration is getting sleeker. It’s still far from commercial viability and the company doesn’t expect it to reach the market until 2028.
“Innovation and product development is everything — they need products to resonate to get shoppers interested,” says Poonam Goyal, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “Should they fail, the turnaround fails.”
Nike’s innovation staff are encouraged to spend 20 percent of their efforts trying to develop moonshot concepts that probably won’t ever make it to store shelves. It’s a policy usually found at a Silicon Valley startup, not a shoemaker.
“I’d expect a much lower hit rate” from such projects, McCartney says.
His ascendance is part of a larger restructuring spearheaded by chief executive officer Elliott Hill, who came out of retirement to take the job last year. In August, Nike completed months of ousters, promotions and hirings in its C-suite, with Hill swapping out most of his direct reports across divisions.
He also shifted 8,000 employees to new roles centred around specific sports, such as basketball and running, while laying off less than 1 percent of his corporate workforce.
“I want us to go faster,” Hill says. “Make stuff people want, need, and when we’re at our best, make stuff that people don’t even know is imaginable.”
An elite runner from Newcastle, England, McCartney took a job with Nike after college, where he studied sports science. He’s worked with Hill in various roles over the years, most recently as general manager of the company’s footwear division, along with Mark Parker, Nike’s executive chairman and former CEO who still gets involved in projects.
To prepare for the 2026 World Cup, set to be held in the US, Canada and Mexico next year, he’s overseeing staff as they work on improvements across Nike’s global football footwear, apparel and equipment, including products like its Tiempo cleats.
McCartney recently flew to Converse headquarters in Boston as management hopes it can benefit from deeper involvement with Nike’s R&D capabilities. With revenue down 28 percent last quarter, executives at Converse, Nike’s smallest label, have started to reset the brand’s Chuck Taylor sneaker line.
He’s also reworking Nike’s running category, which has struggled to fend off rising competition from brands like On and Hoka.
In one recent experiment from his team, runner Faith Kipyegon attempted a 4-minute mile in Paris in custom Nike track spikes developed by McCartney’s teams.
She fell short, but broke her own world record with an unofficial time of 4:06:42.
“Make athletes better,” McCartney says of Nike’s innovation philosophy. “If it’s not, we shouldn’t do it.”
By Kim Bhasin