Sports goods and sportswear marketer Nike has initiated a planning process to look for a successor to chairman Phil Knight.
“Phil Knight has recommended Mark Parker, Nike’s president since 2006 to succeed him as chairman,” a Nike press release informed.Sports goods and sportswear marketer Nike has initiated a planning process to look for a successor to chairman Phil Knight.“Phil Knight has#
Additionally, the Company also named Travis Knight, who is president of animation studio Laika, LLC, which specialises in feature films as the newest member of Nike’s board of directors.
Phil Knight also announced transfer of ownership of his shares to a limited liability company, Swoosh, LLC.
“Over the years, I have spent a great deal of time considering how I might someday evolve my ownership and leadership of Nike in a way that benefits all of our stakeholders,” Knight said.
“We have now taken a number of important steps that will continue to promote Nike long-term growth,” he added.
Knight has set up Swoosh to hold the majority of his shares of Nike Class A Common Stock and will itself have a governance structure that is designed to make thoughtful and forward-looking decisions.
Knight believes this structure will maintain Nike’s strong corporate governance, which has focused its management on serving the consumer and pursuing profitable, long-term growth.
Knight has contributed 128,500,000 shares to the entity representing approximately 15 per cent of the combined total outstanding shares of NIKE Class A and Class B Common Stock.
He has also formed a board of directors of Swoosh to serve as its governing body, which will determine how the Class A shares are voted and managed going forward.
The Swoosh board will initially have four members, who exercise five votes and of the five votes, two will initially be held by Knight, and the other three will be held by Mark Parker, Alan Graf and John Donahoe , the last two being directors at Nike.
“In the future, Knight may choose to appoint an additional director and assign one or both of his votes to that director,” Nike added. (AR)
Fibre2Fashion News Desk - India