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John Donahoe

Former President, Chief Executive Officer & Director, Nike

Search every verified John Donahoe interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. John Donahoe discussed his recent experiences and personal reflections in a podcast interview published on October 12, 2026. He described his departure from Nike as a painful transition that left him feeling that his "soul just feels bruised," attributing the difficulty to a period of alienation from the company's culture and investors. He also recounted that he initially declined the Nike CEO role, saying he had "never designed a shoe" and had never worked for a company making physical products, but accepted it after being told the company needed his technology and management expertise. In the interview, Donahoe spoke about his broader views on adversity, stating that it is "a fact of life" and that it "gives our lives purpose and meaning," while acknowledging that he previously reacted to difficulties with panic and negativity. He also discussed his involvement with MEA, a midlife wisdom school he co-founded, noting that the organization has not yet turned a profit and that he has not paid himself, framing his new definition of success as "ripple of impact" rather than return on investment.

Recent appearances

Notable quotes

“I was on the board I was quite happy at ServiceNow film reached out and said would you come play the CEO role for a period of time initially said you're crazy I've never designed a shoe I've never even been in a product that company that makes a physical and he said we need we have to deal with technology management development and a few things. So it felt like okay maybe this is a calling. I was 60 years old. He sai”

“We are going to double down and invest in Olympic sports and so and investing in our women's sports because we believe that is the that is such an important role to our to our country, to our society, and to the world. And what we're going to do is try to make the economics of our Olympic sports less dependent upon football or less dependent upon other sports, find more sustainable ways to fund that, including we're ”

“We can just turn to what the NBA and WNBA have done and what the NFL has done is I would say three simple things. One, you need eligibility rules. It makes no sense if you're going to have college athletics. It makes no sense for a 28-year-old that's played three years of pro or is in their ninth year of eligibility to be playing in college athletics. So, we need eligibility roles the same way the W and the NBA have ”

“College athletics has been a relatively stable environment for the last 30 or 40 years. And then something happens that triggers disruption. In this case, it was a series of court cases around paying athletes, eligibility, around a variety of things. And you know, eventually you're going to have a modern set a new set of rules that then that prevail. It's in the middle that you live in this lawless middle. And that's”

“We now are able with the under the house rule of the $20.5 million revenue share which is the primary way universities pay the athletes. We pay those athletes. But our coaches know with a recruit or with an existing athlete, if it ever is all about the money, that person's probably not the right fit for Stanford.”

“Do college athletes, in particular, college football and basketball players deserve to be paid in today's media and economic environment? The answer to that's probably yes. And so we got to figure out how do we retain focus on the student athlete but also finding a way they can get paid and share in some of the value that they're creating in a modern world.”

Other executives at Nike

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