Vladimir Rak on leadership philosophy
From Dick’s Sporting Goods CTO Vlad Rak on Inward and Outward Facing Strategies | Technovation 637 · · Metis Strategy
“It's absolutely ingrained in my DNA to wake up and think about sports. Doing that for living in technology is another dimension. We have a lot of athletes at different levels who wake up and obsess about sports, and that's what makes us innovate and be obsessive about other athletes and teammates. It's a collegiate, internally focused culture as one team and very competitive as we face other teams.”
On , Vladimir Rak, Executive Vice President & Chief Technology Officer at DICKS SPORTING GOODS INC, spoke about leadership philosophy during Dick’s Sporting Goods CTO Vlad Rak on Inward and Outward Facing Strategies | Technovation 637 on Metis Strategy.
About Vladimir Rak
In a September 2022 interview on the Technovation podcast, Dick's Sporting Goods EVP and CTO Vlad Rak discussed the company's technology strategy, which he described as centered on both athletes (customers) and teammates (employees). Rak stated that he leads a team of about 1,000 technology professionals and that the company faces challenges from its scale of 870-plus stores, five distribution centers, 1,600 retail partners, 250 million athletes, one million SKUs, and 1.5 billion website visits. He said the company is focused on using data and technology to personalize the athlete experience across channels and to equip teammates with tools to become "trusted advisors" who can help customers learn about and improve in sports. Rak highlighted several areas of technological experimentation, including IoT and sensor-based technologies for analyzing body movement in sports like golf, video analytics, RFID, and face recognition for checkout and customer support. He also mentioned quantum computing as a future area of interest, stating that while it may seem distant, he believes it will arrive faster than many realize. Rak emphasized a culture of "one team" and noted that the company invests similarly in both athlete and teammate experiences, citing a correlation between happy employees and happy customers. He also referenced a recent partnership with Nike as an example of collaboration with the company's 1,600 retail partners.