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 Marketing Strategy Unplugged by David Black  MBAs with a Mission by Brook Raflo Thinking inside the Box by Nicholas Shreiber, Guest Columnist |
Just doing it  Gary De Bay '98EMBA VP of New Business Ventures Nike When Gary De Bay '98EMBA arrived at Goizueta in 1997, he brought with him a plan. During the seventeen years he spent in global brand marketing at DuPont, he incubated a couple of his own business ideas. One was a new type of sports equipment retailer where teenagers could indulge their love of edgy outdoor action sports. De Bay and nine other Executive MBA students conducted a directed study with Associate Professor Robert Kazanjian, finally emerging with a completed business plan called EXPLOR. After he graduated from Goizueta, De Bay moved to Colorado and into the final stages of raising $100 million to put EXPLOR on the map. "It's the next-generation REI," the forty-four-year-old De Bay says. While he was busy getting EXPLOR off the ground, De Bay's phone rang. It was Nike calling, looking for someone who could help find new business niches that would put the company back on the steep growth curve it enjoyed during the 1980s and early 1990s. It was an attractive offer. Now De Bay is transitioning away from EXPLOR, giving up his jobs as president and chief marketing officer and taking a board position. He moved to Portland, Oregon, where he reports directly to Nike CEO Philip Knight. As vice president of new business ventures, De Bay will be part of an effort to launch new "flanker" brands to support the Nike "megabrand." Some of these new brands may be started from within, others acquired, but each brand will be expected to bring innovation and authenticity to their product lines. "As a 25-year-old-company, Nike needs to take the ceiling off and add another $10 billion in sales," says De Bay. "There's not much pressure." One example, De Bay says, might be acquiring a cutting-edge skateboard company that has more credibility in the skateboard market than a company as large and diversified as Nike could ever attain on its own. "It's much like what Gap did with Old Navy," he says. Already Nike's internal incubator is designing smart electronic products for athletes, including MP3 players and heart-rate monitors, and Nike has acquired the Bauer skates and Cole-Haan shoe brands, says De Bay. He credits the EMBA program with giving him the confidence to run his own business. The eighteen months of working and studying was "hell on wheels," particularly after he got behind during the first session, but the opportunity to develop EXPLOR was worth it. "Between my own business experience and brushing up on accounting and finance, I feel like I left with a very balanced foundation to start a new company," De Bay says. David Black 
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