Adidas CEO gave out his cell phone number to 60,000 employees

• Adidas CEO Bjorn Gulden gave out his cell phone number to 60,000 employees.
• Gulden said he did so to increase transparency.
• “Some people think I’m crazy,” Gruden told The Wall Street Journal.

Adidas CEO Bjorn Gulden shared his cell phone number with 60,000 employees during a town hall meeting to increase transparency at the company, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Adidas was in the midst of a difficult period when Gruden, a former professional soccer player, took over in January 2023.

The company had recently severed ties with rapper Kanye West (now known as Yeah) and was in dire straits, posting an operating loss of 724 million euros in the final quarter of 2022. .

Gruden’s first step in righting the ship was to address some of the transparency concerns that were also raised by employees.

After giving out his phone number, Gruden said for a while he received about 200 calls each week from staff asking the company to make changes, according to the Journal.

“Some people think I’m crazy,” the Norwegian told the outlet, before adding that he thought it was important for coaches to be open.

Gruden previously spent nine years at Puma, where he is credited with leading a remarkable sales turnaround, which he is now trying to replicate at Adidas.

After a year in which the company was embroiled in controversy over Ye’s anti-Semitic comments, poor sales and employee dissatisfaction, Mr. Gruden said he recognized that it would be difficult to turn the company around. Ta.

“There was a culture of looking for reasons not to do things,” he said, adding that this was holding the company back.

Just as he did at Puma, Gruden made an immediate impact at Adidas, starting with firing consultants who made decisions no industry expert would ever make, according to the report.

Gulden’s other changes include reintroducing sports like cricket, which have loyal customers in certain large markets such as India, and improving communications at the top of the business so there are more direct reports from department heads. This includes streamlining processes and breaking up labor-intensive evaluation practices. .

He said the company is on track to return to profitability this year.

Its main competitor, Nike, has been the No. 1 company in the industry for decades, but its stock price fell last year due to weak sales.

The company announced in December that it planned to cut hundreds of jobs in a bid to save $2 billion.

Nike also recently ended its iconic partnership with Tiger Woods, which began in 1996.

Adidas did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment outside of normal business hours.