The
WNBA (Women's National Basketball Association) preseason kicks off tomorrow, but the fourth cohort of Women in Nike [WIN] is already a few months into translating their experience as professional basketball players to NIKE, Inc.’s World Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, as full-time employees. And WIN is growing: This year’s cohort has expanded to include USA Track & Field athletes, a first for the program.
The WIN fellows bring their skills and insights from the highest levels of sport over to NIKE. Through a two-year, full-time role matched to the passions and experiences of the fellows, the program is helping build the next generation of talent here at the company. In short, WIN makes NIKE better.
“We’ve all accomplished incredible things in track and basketball,” says
Geena Levoe, Nike Footwear Analyst and a former pro 800-meter runner who represented the United States in London 2012. “Now, we’re on the other side of those careers, and we get to give back to the next generation of athletes. Competing, winning: That was what we were born to do. Now we have another purpose that matches Nike’s maxim of serving athletes. It’s powerful stuff.”
Nicole Bush, Nike Associate Merchant for Kids/Boys Performance, now uses many of the skills that made her the 2013 American champion in the steeplechase: leadership, resilience, hard work and a sense of purpose.
“We have a high baseline for doing things. That’s why the program exists,” she says. “NIKE trusts that our baseline as athletes can help the whole company grow through our ability to lead, to think outside of the box and to innovate.”
NIKE needs the best and the brightest employees to help bring sport to athletes everywhere — people like
Yolanda Moore, M.S., who won back-to-back titles with the WNBA’s Houston Comets in the late ’90s. She’s also a published author, life coach and Ph.D. candidate in instructional systems and workplace development. She now works in footwear product testing with Jordan Brand.
Moore says the program’s expansion to other sports reflects the same mindset that her cohort brought to the court and the track: Never settle. Always consider how an individual, team or whole company can improve. Then get after it.
“Creating space for us as the voice of the athlete and then respecting what we bring will continue defining the program as it grows to more sports,” says Moore. “We’ve got some dope women here. Open the gate. Let us do what we do.”
Learn more about the program here: https://lnkd.in/gXRjky_r
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