C L I E N T S U C C E S S S T O R Y

ADIDAS: ACTION-ORIENTED LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

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A partnership that empowers top leaders with new insights. Adidas has a clear mission: to be the

best sports company in the world. To help

achieve this, the company has partnered

with Harvard Business School (HBS)

Executive Education, establishing a tradition

of custom executive training that promotes

leadership development and serves as a

reward for top performers.

Adidas works with HBS Executive Education

to develop programs that address the

organization’s specific goals and most

important strategic challenges. The programs

are structured to provide leadership with

the opportunity to gain new perspectives,

apply them when executing strategy, and

collaborate effectively.

For success, organizations need leadership teams that are motivated by finding and applying new ways of thinking about their business issues. To expose leaders to relevant fresh ideas and inspire them to effectively execute company strategies, adidas partners with HBS Executive Education. The resulting programs deliver what adidas needs for success.

• Acting on Learnings

• Tailoring Content

• Cultivating Talent

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Adidas’s senior management team puts their newly acquired knowledge into practice well before they return to the office.

Kasper Rorsted, CEO of adidas, believes that studying

at HBS Executive Education isn’t just an opportunity

to build knowledge; it’s a well-deserved reward for

top performers. “Harvard is to education what the

Champions League is to soccer,” says Rorsted.

“There’s pride in being able to say, ‘I was at Harvard.’”

Rorsted was named CEO of adidas in 2016 after

holding senior leadership roles at Oracle, Compaq,

and Hewlett Packard in addition to serving as CEO

of Henkel. Over the course of his tenure, adidas has

experienced great financial success, with market cap

growth exceeding 75 percent. Operating in more than

75 countries worldwide, the company currently

employs more than 57,000 people.

To help meet adidas’s growing needs, HBS faculty and

program designers worked closely with Rorsted and

his leadership team to develop a customized program.

This year’s sessions focused on optimizing performance

management and adapting to a digital future.

While the inaugural program included adidas’s Core

Leadership Group of 30 top executive leaders, the

following year, Rorsted invited the next 120 senior

leaders from around the world to attend the custom

executive education program at HBS. By providing this

unique opportunity to additional tiers of management,

adidas established strong, company-wide buy-in that

enabled attendees to speak the same language,

collaborate more easily, and quickly put any plans

developed at HBS into action.

In fact, the adidas executives didn’t wait until they

got back to headquarters to begin implementing their

new ideas. After the sessions concluded, the Core

Leadership Group continued the discussion among

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A C T I N G O N L E A R N I N G S

Putting insights into action at adidas.

“I see executive education in two ways: as a reward and as development for senior leaders. I don’t believe you ever finish learning. That’s why we keep coming back to HBS.”

— K A S P E R R O R S T E D , C E O , A D I D A S A G

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themselves, applying what they learned to their

business challenges and strategies. “They would

ask ‘why is this relevant for us?’ and ‘how can we

directly put an action plan in place?’” says Rorsted.

Within four weeks of returning to their offices,

the entire group of 150 HBS participants convened

at their biannual meeting to determine how to

cascade their learnings and how to apply them

when executing the company’s strategy throughout

the organization.

In addition to the educational opportunities,

Rorsted also found value in the on-campus living/

working experience. “You develop a different

relationship with your colleagues while you’re

here,” he said. “You get up together. You run

together. You have breakfast together. You live

in a community. It’s the compounding experience

that makes HBS so unique.”

Naturally, the team from adidas ran their own

exercise program while on campus. Asked to

describe the venerable tradition of running the

steps at Harvard Stadium, Rorsted laughed and

said, “Cruel.”

Impact

• Positioning the HBS Executive Education experience

as a reward helped motivate adidas’s top performers

• Impactful follow-up discussions enabled the team to

internalize their newfound insights—and apply them

powerfully when executing the company strategy

• Program attendance by the top three tiers of

management fostered greater collaboration and

enabled the insights to cascade worldwide

A C T I N G O N L E A R N I N G S – C O N T I N U E D

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When Kasper Rorsted joined adidas in 2016 as CEO,

he sought to create and institutionalize a leading

executive education program for his top-tier leaders.

In his previous role as CEO of consumer goods

conglomerate Henkel, Kasper Rorsted frequently

sponsored executives to attend HBS Executive

Education’s open enrollment programs. By doing so, he

aimed to expose these leaders to new perspectives,

ideas, and strategies and to help them better

understand how the company stacked up against

external benchmarks. When he joined adidas, Rorsted

sought to establish a tradition of executive training

that would facilitate leadership development and also

serve as a reward for the company’s top performers.

To help achieve this goal, Rorsted returned to HBS

Executive Education—this time, to develop a custom

program for adidas leaders. The first decision he made

was to concentrate on topics that were most important

to the organization. Rorsted explains, “Focusing the

program on the same topics we’re prioritizing from a

business standpoint serves as an accelerator.”

He worked closely with the HBS Executive Education

program design team to customize the curriculum

and leverage cases that would best support his

business goals. “When we select a case study,” says

Rorsted, “we try, less from an industry standpoint

but more from a content standpoint, to ensure that

there are elements of the case that are very relevant

to us. Then we pick one or two learnings out of the

case study and apply it directly to a business problem

within our organization.”

That doesn’t mean there were no surprises. When HBS

professor Anita Elberse assigned a case on Disney

Studios, the adidas team at first wasn’t sure what they

could learn from the movie business. In the classroom

discussion, however, challenged by Professor Elberse’s

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T A I L O R I N G C O N T E N T

Customizing the perfect fit for adidas.For the CEO of adidas, an HBS Executive Education custom program means high-impact strategies—and unexpected insights.

“Before you embark on a custom HBS program, it’s important to consider what you’re trying to achieve—and how to accomplish that goal. By working closely with the team at HBS, we were able to target the cases and discussions to our company’s most pressing issues and strategic challenges.”

— K A S P E R R O R S T E D , C E O , A D I D A S A G

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questions, they saw clear connections between Disney’s “tentpole”

strategy for blockbuster films and their own Stan Smith and Superstar

shoe franchises. Executives and senior managers in adidas now use

concepts from Elberse’s sessions in everyday discussions focused on

strategy execution.

From digital media and strategy execution to performance management

and corporate culture, Rorsted and his management board collaborate

with the HBS team to select the most relevant topics. With every

subsequent program, HBS faculty learn more about adidas, too.

“There’s enormous value in returning to HBS,” says Rorsted. “When the

professors understand our company better, it’s easier for them to

tailor the case studies to address our specific issues.”

T A I L O R I N G C O N T E N T – C O N T I N U E D

Impact

• Collaboration between adidas and HBS Executive

Education helped deliver a custom program that

targeted adidas’s most pressing issues

• The inclusion of case studies outside of the

sports lifestyle industry enabled the team to gain

new perspectives

• Regular participation in HBS custom programs helped

participants build on their knowledge year over year

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“Anyone running an HR organization and trying to find the right approach to learning and development knows that it’s difficult to remain relevant. Having a relationship with a partner like HBS, where we have trust in the relationship and can address our challenges, translates very well—and has been the best solution for us.”

— K A R E N P A R K I N , E X E C U T I V E B O A R D

M E M B E R R E S P O N S I B L E F O R G L O B A L H U M A N

R E S O U R C E S , A D I D A S A G

In the competition for the best talent, adidas’s executive education programs offer opportunities to reward, develop—and disrupt—their best employees.

Karen Parkin, adidas executive board member

responsible for Global Human Resources, views

executive education as a critical component

to developing individual leaders—and growing

the organization.

“World of Sports”—adidas’s global headquarters in

Herzogenaurach, Germany—serves as the hub for

the company’s 57,000+ employees. Coordinating this

diverse and global workforce is Karen Parkin, who

took an unconventional path to her position as board

member responsible for Global HR. After joining

adidas in 1997, Parkin worked in both the UK and

the United States in sales, customer service, logistics,

and supply chain management before ascending to

her current role.

While professional development has always been

part of the agenda, adidas’s strategy around talent

and leadership has shifted. “When we think about our

culture and how we treat people, we reference four

pillars,” explains Parkin. “First, how do we want to

attract and retain talent? Second, how do we ensure

that we have inspiring role models in the company?

Third, how do we bring forth fresh and diverse

perspectives in our organization? And finally, how

do we create an environment that’s conducive to

achieving these goals?”

At adidas, identifying great leaders is a responsibility

shared between Parkin and CEO Kasper Rorsted.

“We look for gaps in the organization and consider

who might fill those gaps,” says Rorsted. “Karen and

I both evaluate potential high performers and make

sure we are in agreement. After all, we have to sing

from the same songbook.”

Once candidates are selected for advancement,

adidas invests in them. Parkin explains, “When we

identify a candidate for executive education, we’re

saying, ‘We want to invest in you because you’re a

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C U L T I V A T I N G T A L E N T

Building the team at adidas.

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great leader. We’re going to take you to the best

business school in the world and give you the skills

you need to be that role model that’s so important to

our people, our company, our brand, and ultimately,

our consumers.’”

Before deciding to work with Harvard Business School,

Parkin and other members of the senior leadership

team carefully reviewed several executive education

programs. “We knew we needed to bring in a world-

class partner to help us be better than we are today,”

says Parkin. “And if we want to be the best sports

and fitness firm and have the best people, we have to

partner with the best—and that is Harvard Business

School. We’ve worked really well together to develop

a program that supports our journey and desire to

disrupt the industry—and ourselves.”

The program’s initial year was a success, equipping 30

top leaders with critical skills and knowledge. But in

a global company of more than 57,000 employees,

Parkin and Rorsted discovered that it was not enough

to rapidly institute meaningful change. “That’s when

we started to say, don’t just bring the top, expand the

program,” says Parkin.

“We recognized that the top 150 leaders in the

company don’t have the same challenges and needs,

so we decided to separate the two programs,”

explains Rorsted. “The top 30 in the company

are formulating long-term global strategy. The next

120 might be dealing with operational issues.

Both groups might use the same case studies but

focus on different takeaways.”

The programs have had such a profound impact

that adidas now brings their leadership team back

to HBS on a regular basis. “The first time anyone

comes to HBS, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the

case studies, the networking, and the environment,”

says Parkin. “Consequently, the output of the second

experience ends up being much greater. It’s like

seeing a freshman class become a senior class.”

C U L T I V A T I N G T A L E N T – C O N T I N U E D

Impact

• Executive education is a key driver in attracting

and retaining talented employees—and

bringing fresh perspectives to the organization

• An immersive educational environment is the

perfect opportunity to empower employees to

leave their comfort zones and embrace growth,

disruption, and change

• A larger group of participating executives

ensures that lessons effectively cascade

throughout the organization

• Leadership development is the shared

responsibility of the C-suite

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We are your partner in developing leaders who create change.

Renowned Faculty All HBS Executive Education programs are

led by full-time HBS faculty. These exceptional,

dedicated educators are highly sought-after

thought leaders who are driving and defining

discourse throughout the business world.

Diverse Teaching Methods HBS Executive Education offers a wide array

of distinctive teaching methodologies to meet

diverse learning styles. With many learning

solutions from which to draw, including Harvard

Business School’s hallmark, case-based learning,

we will work with you to determine how to best

meet your learners’ needs.

Transformative Learning SolutionsWe take a multimodal approach to deliver

learning solutions designed to drive impact.

Drawing from a variety of learning modes

and methodologies, we’ll partner with your

organization to deliver a best-in-class solution

directly linked to your specific business needs.9

W H Y H B S E X E C U T I V E E D U C A T I O N

Customize high-impact leadership development to deliver maximum impact to your organization.

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