Senior Director, Athlete Future Lab

Nike • Beaverton, OR

1d

About The Position

The Senior Director will lead Nike’s Athlete Future Lab (AFL), which explores emerging forces shaping sport and athletes and turns foresight, research, and creative intelligence into enterprise opportunities, strategic choices, investment pathways, and actionable next steps. The Lab’s work spans Nike, Jordan, and Converse brands and nested sub-brands, with a focus on opportunities for the Innovation, Design, and Product organization.

This is a player-coach leadership role. The Senior Director will set the Lab’s vision, strategy, operating model, and portfolio while directly shaping its highest-priority research, synthesis, opportunity definition, and executive narratives. The role leads a multidisciplinary team of foresight, research, strategy, and creative practitioners, and partners with senior leaders across Innovation, Design, Product, and other enterprise functions to connect future opportunities with strategic priorities, portfolios, and decisions.

The Senior Director will translate emerging behaviors, sports, and systems into product, experience, business, and capability opportunities; advise leaders on future shifts and investment implications; and define how the Lab measures and communicates its impact. The role also manages team capacity, budgets, external partnerships, and competing priorities, while building an inclusive, curious, ambitious, and accountable team culture and an external network of athletes, cultural leaders, researchers, technologists, creators, and strategic partners.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Design, Strategy, Research, Foresight, Business, or a related field; suitable combinations of education, experience, and training will be accepted.
• 12+ years of progressive experience in strategic foresight, design strategy, human-centered research, product innovation, or a related discipline, including significant experience leading teams and enterprise-scale work.
• Deep passion for athletes, sport, culture, and the forces reshaping how people move, compete, connect, and create.
• Demonstrated ability to set a multi-year vision, strategy, operating model, and portfolio for a foresight or innovation capability.
• Player-coach leadership skills, including directing and developing a multidisciplinary team while personally advancing critical research, synthesis, opportunity framing, and executive storytelling.
• People leadership capabilities, including hiring, coaching, talent development, performance management, succession planning, workload prioritization, and building an inclusive team culture.
• Expertise in horizon scanning, drivers-of-change analysis, ethnographic and cultural research, scenario development, opportunity mapping, and applied backcasting.
• Ability to translate ambiguity and complex signals into differentiated opportunities, strategic choices, investment implications, and actionable roadmaps.
• Executive presence and strong verbal, written, and visual communication skills, including influencing senior leaders and defending recommendations with evidence and sound judgment.
• Experience shaping decisions across complex, matrixed organizations and aligning partners across Innovation, Design, Product, Brand, and business functions.
• Entrepreneurial mindset and sound risk judgment; willingness to challenge conventions, test new territories, and adjust course as evidence evolves.
• Ability to synthesize complexity into compelling, simple, human-centered narratives that move teams from insight to action.
• Ability to build and manage productive relationships with external experts, creative partners, research organizations, and vendors.
• High standards for creative and strategic quality, with the pace, focus, and resilience to deliver under pressure.
• Strong interpersonal resourcefulness and a record of creating clarity, healthy debate, collaboration, and shared ownership across teams.
• Leadership maturity to manage through change, make difficult tradeoffs, address performance directly, and support teams with clarity and empathy.

Responsibilities

• Set the vision, priorities, and multi-year roadmap for the Athlete Future Lab, aligned with Nike’s enterprise and Innovation, Design, and Product priorities.
• Lead, coach, and develop a multidisciplinary team; establish roles, operating rhythms, quality standards, and accountability for outcomes.
• Personally lead or contribute to the Lab’s most complex and high-impact foresight initiatives as a player-coach.
• Own a portfolio spanning horizon scanning, cultural forensics, future hunting zones, topical deep dives, opportunity definition, and applied backcasting.
• Translate emerging behaviors, sports, and systems into differentiated product, experience, business, and capability opportunities, with recommendations and pathways to action.
• Advise senior leadership on future shifts, strategic implications, portfolio choices, risks, and opportunities; develop executive narratives that enable timely decisions.
• Build alignment across Innovation, Design, Product, and business teams, and establish ownership and handoffs that move foresight from insight to application.
• Define impact measures and communicate the value of foresight through adoption, decisions influenced, opportunities advanced, and organizational learning.
• Manage team capacity, budgets, external partnerships, and competing priorities to deliver a focused portfolio with excellence and pace.
• Build and steward an external network of athletes, cultural leaders, researchers, technologists, creators, and strategic partners.
• Represent the Athlete Future Lab in senior forums and enterprise moments, strengthening organizational fluency in foresight and ability to act under uncertainty.
• Foster a curious, ambitious, inclusive, and accountable culture that develops talent, rewards constructive challenge, and raises strategic and creative quality.
• Establish governance, define success measures, manage resources and budgets, and maintain accountability across concurrent initiatives.
• Partner with senior leaders and teams across Innovation, Design, Product, and adjacent enterprise functions to align future opportunities with strategic priorities, portfolios, and decision-making.

Benefits

• Interview-process accommodations are available, including screen readers, sign language interpreters, accessible and single-location in-person interviews, closed captioning, and other reasonable modifications as needed.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior