[Music] [Jim Stengel] Hello, everyone. Welcome. Good to see your smiling faces. So has anyone bet over this week? - [Man] Yes. - Anyone placed them? Yes, you have? - Yes. - Okay. Well, I was down there this morning, and I placed a million-dollar bet, that after this hour, Dick's Sporting Goods stock price goes up.
So we're going to track that, okay? So a little bit of an audience check. Are there anyone, any people here from Dick's Sporting Goods? Whoo. All right. Okay. Well, I may have to pull the helpline with you guys if I get stuck with questions for Emily later. You good with that? Start thinking about what I should ask her. Okay? All right. Super. Anyone from P&G here, which is my alma mater. No one? No one? How about from Deloitte? Big sponsor here. No one from Deloitte? Havas? My friends at Havas? Oh, my gosh. Well, thank you for coming, Dick's Sporting Goods. It's good to see you. So, anyway...
I'm going to put-- Anyone know whose brand this is the platform for? You can't say anything over here. Dick's, okay, got it. Now I want to go to you all first, and I want anyone to stand up if this platform has come to life with you personally. So has sports in any way shape or form impacted or changed your life or the life of your family? So stand up if it has.
Okay. Well, pretty good job with the grand positioning over here, Dick's Sporting Goods. So I want anyone who might be so inspired-- Hello, David Shing. Welcome. Anyone who's so inspired to share that story today? I have to warn you, we may be making this into a podcast, so what you say we can eliminate, but if you're okay with it being on the show, we'll keep it. Anyone want to raise their hand that might want to share a story? Okay, in the back with the striped shirt. I think we may bring a mic to you, if you don't mind. Waiting a second or maybe we won't.
Here it comes. Here it comes. - [Jolin] So as a very unathletic person-- - Yeah. Clearly very tall as well. - Very unathletic person, but my-- - What's your name? - Jolin. - Who you're with? - Fidelity. - Okay. So I work in Fintech now, but my career was really jumpstarted, inspired, I got eight years working professional soccer. - It was my dream. - Oh, wow. Loved it. Not doing it any longer but changed my life. Met my husband. Moved all over the country. Got to travel with some of the best athletes in the US. And what emotion comes to mind when you think of those times? It was my opportunity to just figure out what I wanted to do and be really good at it, figure out what made me excited.
Beautiful. So anyone else want to volunteer? You all sat down. That's okay. Anyone else want to volunteer their story? One more.
I can go to the Dick's Sporting Goods people if I need to. Would anyone else want to share a story? Yeah, please. Do you want to go to the microphone? - [Nick Lauren] I want to get one. - Yeah. Yeah. Good. I don't know who you are, so make sure you tell me who you are, your name, and who you're with.
Hi, I'm Nick Lauren. I've been an alcoholic for five years.
I love sport. And as a kid, it was the only thing I was good at. I was not academic at all. - So-- - It doesn't surprise me, Nick. Yeah. Built my confidence. Yeah, I'm dead from the neck up like most convicts.
So it gave me confidence. And the other thing it did, and I think this is a really underappreciated thing with youth sport, especially in this country and the country I'm from, Australia...
Is that, you mix with people outside of your social sphere. So for me the Indigenous Australians that I knew were through sport. That's how I knew them. And I'm seeing this now with my son playing basketball and everything. So I think it's one of the last sort of leveling democratic activities that we can all get involved in. - Yeah. Beautiful. Okay. - Yeah.
So this is my story. Emily, how old am I there, do you think? Wild guess.
- [Emily Silver] Seventeen. - Seventeen. Yeah. I think I'm a little younger. So I was born and raised in Pennsylvania, and high school football in Pennsylvania is a thing. And so I was a sophomore in high school, and a coach came down to me and said, "We'd like you to play in the Varsity." So that was rare in those days for a sophomore, not so rare anymore to play in the Varsity. So what happened with me in this time, and it was very intense. My whole life was football in those days. And that coach-- It's always a coach, it seems to be always a coach, and just instilled in me...
A confidence that I could oppose anyone and win no matter who it was. They were 50 pounds bigger than me, faster than me. Just he always had it up here, "If you think it and you work on it, you can do it." And that has totally stuck with me, and the memories I have in that time in my life are still profound. And my deepest friends in my life, I shared that experience with to this day, the kids I grew up with.
So I want to introduce Emily, who's going to join me on stage in a moment. And I have a show, The CMO Podcast. Emily was a guest last fall, September, early October. And I didn't know her very well. I knew her by reputation. We came out of the same industry, consumer packaged goods. And I had her on the show, and we just hit it off immediately. The chemistry was great. The discussion was wonderful. I thought she was amazing, how she thought about her team, her organization, their purpose, why she made the move to Dick's to become the CMO. And so when Adobe reached out to me and said, "Hey, you talked with a lot of CMOs. We'd like you to come to this meeting, talk about what's on the mind of CMOs in these times of change." I said, "Can I bring Emily?" And they immediately said yes. So that's why we're here today. So I want to bring Emily to the stage with her story of how sports has impacted her life. So, Emily-- Welcome Emily.
Give me the old sports high-five.
Thank you, Jim.
There was instant chemistry, and I appreciate you having me on your show, and I appreciate being here with you and all of you today. Thank you, Adobe, for making this happen. Thank you, Adobe, for making this happen. So I'll talk about the kiddos in a minute, but sports changed my life in hindsight as a kid in a very personal way because my dad was older than most parents. He had me in his mid-50s. My mom came from another country. And I didn't realize it until after the fact, but I and my brother and our family almost felt a little bit like outsiders because our dynamic was very different than others in our town. And sports was a commonality that we could all rally around, whether it was the New England Patriots at the time or the Celtics or the Red Sox not being able to win or local sports. It was something that just gave us common ground and made me and I think the rest of my family feel included. So that's an angle I also think about when I think about sports. On the slide here, and I have a dear friend from home who knows my children. So if you could tell [INAUDIBLE], Lena, who works for Accenture. Thank you for coming. These are my little ones. On the left and in the middle is Izzy. She's 10 now. And sports has given her tremendous confidence and a little bit of sass. And then my older one 14, Natalie has really found her social footing through sports as well. So it's just such a pleasure to see them be part of a team and learn all the lessons of sport and grow into strong, confident, and strong-willed girls.
What country was your mom from? She's from England. - Okay. Got it. - Mm-hmm. Therefore the accent, right? Yeah, right. She had one I think. So, gang, here's our plan for today. You just met Emily and myself with our short sports story. You're going to meet us a little bit more deeply before we jump into the bulk of our content today. We're going to talk about Dick's and how they're thriving as a company in these times of change. Then we're going to flip into more personal leadership and how Emily is thriving in these times, and then we'll wrap up. And hopefully we'll have time for more dialogue with you. So think about questions you might have and we'll go there. - So-- - Not that table over there. Yeah. They're more than welcome. I may even make them ask some questions. I know you will. So that's our plan. And what we're going to do is we have five questions for each other, and she may not know what's coming. I gave her a little bit of a hint, and she did the same. So I'm going to let you start, Emily, with your first question for me. Okay. So I admired your career at P&G very much. Obviously, with the podcast, you hear a lot of interesting ideas from CMOs all around the country and sometimes around the world. What's the craziest idea that you ever had that you wish you'd implemented that you did not? What do you think, Shaggy? Wow. Out of P&G, you didn't have that many crazy ideas.
But I would have to say, one idea we weren't not able to pull off. This is an idea of maybe for all of you in publicly traded companies. Because I went to our CFO when I was CMO at P&G, and I said, "How many shareholders do we have?" It was a lot. It was a lot. Individuals, companies, institutions. I said, why aren't all of them fierce advocates for our brands? Do they know all the brands we have? Do they buy our brands? Are they out there talking, because they own part of the company? So how can we make advocates out of every single human being that owns our share? So he just looks at me and says, "No fucking way." Too many obstacles, blah-blah, blah-blah-blah. But it's a good idea.
It's a good idea. I said, can we send them coupons? Something like that. And we were not able to pull it off. So I won't get into all the details. So it was a good, wild idea that didn't come off. I will tell you I had two crazy ideas in my career. What's the best thing to do when you have a superior product? When you have a superior product, what do you do with it? Anyone? Sample it? Because if you build high quality trial not based on price, you have a much higher chance of building a consumer for life. So I worked on two brands where I said, I want to sample this product to everyone...
100% of people.
And I did it with a food brand when I first came to P&G. It cost $60 million in the 1980s. But I wanted every person in the country of the US to sample the product. And we shipped it in the summer and it had chocolate in it.
So anyway, that's it. - I'm going too long. - That's it. Those pesky sticky loads. Here's an easier one for you. This is so cliché. Favorite hobby or pastime when not working at Dick's Sporting Goods? So my dream, it's not happening, but maybe one day is to be a professional tennis player. - Oh. - I played growing up. It's how I also bonded with my dad. I love tennis. I love to play. I don't play enough, but I try to play as much as I can when I'm not working or with the kids. Tell the charming story of your dad taking you to play tennis with his friends. This was in the podcast. I mentioned my dad was older, and he loved tennis, and he would always play doubles with his friends who were around similar ages. And so when I was about 10, he was mid-60s. Some of his friends were early 70s. And I used to think it was so cool that they invited me to play with them, play doubles with these older men. - Old guys. - Old guys. Then I realized what they really wanted was during the breaks, they would pull out their plastic folding chairs, and I would pick up all the balls. They just wanted someone to help them pick up the balls. All right. Your turn.
What inspires you? Oh, my.
Sports inspire me. I mean, not just saying because we're up here. I love underdogs. I love comeback stories. So this is a good time of year with March Madness, women and men. - Yeah. - So fun. I love the early rounds. So sports inspires me for all the reasons we're talking about.
I'm in an interesting phase in my life. My kids are adults, and I have three granddaughters, two and under. And anyone here-- Not many of you have grandparents yet, but there is a-- There you go. Cheers. There is a special feeling when you have granddaughters.
And just being around them is uplifting. The definition of inspiring is lifts you up. They definitely do that. It's awesome. - Your turn. - Okay. Favorite tennis player of all time. Stay on that theme. Well, consistent being in Vegas, Andre Agassi. Yeah. Andre Agassi, I had his calendar in my room. I had his neon green shorts in my closet. I love Andre Agassi. Women's tennis, Gabriela Sabatini, but-- If you had told Adobe, they probably would have him on stage with us today. - You think so? - I know. I bet they could have arranged that.
That would be interesting. Okay, your turn.
Most memorable sports moment you've ever witnessed? You're from Cincinnati. You must have seen a lot.
I'm not from Cincinnati. I grew up near Philadelphia, but I've lived there off and on for 40 years.
This is a special one.
I was living in Europe at the time, came back to the US, and saw Michael Jordan's last game in person, in Philadelphia. And I did it with my kids and my younger brother Bob's kids. He had three kids. And he was so close to me. He was a doctor. He got leukemia at 41, passed away at 50, and I had that shared experience with him while he was sick and while he was still with us. So that, for many reasons, is the most memorable story for me. Sorry about your brother.
- So-- - That's a great one. Okay. What do you love-- How long have you been CMO at Dick's Sporting Goods? - It'll be two years next week. - Two years next week. What do you love most about it? Sounds cliché. I love the people. The people there truly believe in the mission. We'll talk about that a little bit more later. Believe in the company. It's a growth company. So it's a company that takes risks, wants to invest in driving...
Not just the future of retail but the future of sports. And it's sports. So it's just a great unifier and something I'm very proud of. Looks good.
Okay. Is it your turn? So you talked about playing football as a child. What do you do today for sports? Tennis. Just like you. - Yeah. - Yeah. I'm crazy about tennis. I'm not terribly good because I took it up as an adult, but I'm okay. And I don't like playing matches as much because I'm competitive, but I don't like, I like what we call cardio tennis...
Where it's a cardio workout across courts with a group of people and some pros. And I do that in the nice weather when I'm in Cincinnati five times a week. - Oh, wow. - And I love it. It is like meditation. Nothing is in my mind but that moment when I'm with those people outdoors playing wonderful tennis on clay.
I just love it. It inspires me. Amazing. - My turn? - Mm-hmm.
You have a policy of no meetings from 12:00 to 1:00 every day at Dick's Sporting Goods. How do you typically spend that hour? Yeah. I think this is brilliant. My previous company talked about doing this for years, and we could never nail it. But it is something that I try to abide by, try to abide by, and I think it's incredible for the company just really give everyone an hour to do what they need to do to recharge. In nice weather, I take a walk.
In not nice weather, don't repeat this, I sometimes take a little quick power nap, scroll Instagram, watch the news, but it really is a reset and a great practice I think for anyone at any company just to start-- - So you'd take powernap in the office? - I do. How do you do that? You get on the floor? - You have a sofa? - I have a big couch. Yeah, the sofa. Okay. I always worry about getting on the floor of my office and thinking that people be thinking I died or something. Anyway. Okay. Your turn. Okay. That's wouldn't be good, I want to say that.
If you could collaborate with any brand, who would it be and why? Oh, I'll relate this to-- There's a few, but at this point in my life, with three granddaughters, I would love to do something with Sesame Street. Oh. About business and marketing and make it really fun. Make it uplifting and make it real and make it honest. Because one thing about our field, our function, and I worked with these two gentlemen upfront here, you can just change the arc of a culture, of people, of a team through marketing. That's true. And I think there's such positive power in it, and we don't talk about that enough. - So Sesame Street. - Love that. Yeah. I think we have one more question or two more questions? One more. Yeah, I think so. - One more. - On the music track. - Okay. - Me too. If we could rewind the clock and take you back to being an assistant brand manager at PepsiCo, where you spent 16, 17 years. Seventeen years. What are some of the things you would prioritize being great at? I would prioritize some of the things I think I happen to fall into prioritizing, and there are some things I would go back and tell myself not to do. So the things I would prioritize then and now, they haven't necessarily changed, is building relationships that is critical both inside and outside the company and real relationships, mutually beneficial relationships...
Understanding other functions deeply. We're talking about the CFO. I made a joke about the CFO, but truly understanding what other functions do. When I was an assistant brand manager, I got very interested in supply chain and tried to learn really truly how the products and the innovations we were working on at the time of PepsiCo got to market, and that helped me in spades in my career. One of the reasons I'm happy to be here, not just with the marketing and the e-com team but with the tech team is understanding that world and their world and trying to understand the overlap and how we can help each other and benefit from each other is incredibly important.
And then continuing always to try to learn externally and apply other lessons from not just for other businesses, but other areas of the world into your own work, I think, is really important.
But I would go back and tell myself at that time is not to worry so much.
Just not to worry so much and not to let work become such a part of your identity that it can drag you down at certain points.
That's pretty profound what you just said. I'll just pause on that one. Well, it's true. We used to count the months who got promoted faster than us at P&G. Someone got a month ahead of me. Why that happened? Relax. So childish and so short term. So short term. - Yeah. - So short term. Okay.
You've been here, what, 24 hours or so? Yeah, a little bit. Anything happened here that impressed you, made you think...
That inspired you? The answer can be no. You probably spent half of that sleeping. I did spend half of that sleeping, but I had a fantastic dinner with some of my colleagues last night. And it was just nice to get out, talk. - Was the restaurant good? - It was very good. - Where'd you go? - We went to Del Frisco's. - Okay. - Steakhouse. Good conversation, good cocktails.
Did you all learn something about Emily last night that you didn't know? You're looking shy now. Anyone? Did you learn anything now that you didn't know about Emily? Okay. I'm getting some nods. We may come back to that.
Okay. Is it your turn? - It is my turn. - Okay. Okay. - Best-- - We'll end on this. We'll end on this. Sure. Yeah. Best sports rivalry and why? I love Penn State. I met my wife there. I went to P&G from there.
And they used to have a great rivalry at Pitt, but no more. I'd have to say my son went to Ohio State. Ohio State, Michigan goes deep.
It goes deep. Yeah. See? Yes, Duke North Carolina, Celtics, Lakers, but it's deeper, Ohio State, Michigan.
- And I have to say that. - Interesting. I have to say, and it's a wonderful rivalry.
- Love it. - Okay. - That's fun. Thank you. - Yeah. It was good. Everyone okay with that? Okay. Super.
We're going to show a video now that's really fresh. - You just had big earnings. - We did. Meeting last week with your investors. You created this video I think for that meeting. So would you like to set this up in any other way than what I just did? Sure. So this is our investor video. Proud of it for a number of reasons. One, it will show and I highlight the year we had, which is kudos to everyone at the company. It also highlights some of my favorite marketing from the year and some of the commercial campaigns that I'm most proud of. And I think it gives a really good sense of the energy of all of our employees, our teammates, particularly I'll call the frontline in our stores who really drive the business day-in and day-out. And you get a little sense of what we're about. So take out your popcorn. It's two or three minutes long. Enjoy it, and we'll come back in a few minutes.
[Man] 2024 was another incredible year for Dick's. We delivered strong and consistent performance by executing on our four key strategic pillars, enhancing the athlete experience, offering differentiated products, strengthening brand engagement, and enriching the teammate experience.
What a year it's been, and we're just getting started!
The convergence of sports and culture has never been stronger with some of the world's biggest sporting events set to take place in the United States. This presents a huge opportunity as the expected momentum will only grow by 2030 and beyond. As a company deeply rooted in sport, Dick's is uniquely poised to seize this opportunity from a position of strength.
That's why we're investing to drive further growth by attacking three significant growth areas. First, we're continuing to reposition our real estate and store portfolio. In 2024, we opened seven House of Sport stores, while also opening 15 Field House stores. And in 2025, we look to open 16 more House of Sport stores as well as 18 new Field House stores.
Our second growth area is to accelerate our footwear growth through strategic investments in high-impact marketing, teammate training, and expertise, while building a suite of technology tools to make the athlete experience more seamless.
Third, we're accelerating our ecommerce growth through strategic investments and high-impact marketing and technology. So athletes can navigate how they want to shop, where and when they shop, and in a way that is more convenient for them. All this brings us closer to our vision to be the best sports company in the world. [Woman] Who are we? [All] DSG!
Okay, Emily. Yeah. Thank you.
How do you feel when you watch that? Proud, excited...
Inspired. I don't know if everyone picked up on it, but this idea of going from a sports retailer to the best sports company in the world is something that we're all incredibly passionate about. It's truly enabled by technology, which is very relevant to this conference in general. And the other thing I just find so striking, the map of all the sports moments that are coming up in this country in the next few years, whether you're in the sports business or just a fan, how amazing is that going to be. And just the energy and the enthusiasm and hopefully the purity of that excitement will really lift, I think all of us over the next three, four, five years.
So when investors see that, how do they react? They react well to the growth story. - Yeah. - Of course. I think we're getting a lot of accolades for our House of Sport concept and our Field House concept.
Did we dim the lights because I said investors? Yeah. I think that was very freaky. I'm going to get in trouble for this, but very positively overall. Yeah. Super. Super.
Okay.
As we said, you released your earnings last week. If you haven't followed Dick's Sporting Goods, it was a record quarter all time. It was a fabulous fiscal year. Lots of growth, lots of innovation, and lots of spirit. And I want to put up here...
Your belief, your core belief of the company, the common purpose, your vision, and your values. I lifted this right off the site. You can't help but see it when you spend 10 seconds looking at Dick's presence online. So I want to start with this, Emily. This is a framework for your company, not the function of marketing. And I want you to talk a bit about the role of this framework in building the results you have gotten and the culture at Dick's, which is at the end of the day your special sauce. Yeah. I'll take a step back and say, we're going to talk about lessons and reflections on careers. And one of the things I've learned overtime is how important culture is. And it doesn't mean culture is right or wrong in a certain company. It really is what fits your personality and what fits your beliefs and whether the words on the paper or on the website are real. And what I've been so impressed by and grateful to be a part of since joining, as I mentioned almost two years ago is, these words on the page are so real throughout everything we do in the company, through the teammates, through the marketing, through the finance, with the tech. Like, truly everyone believes in this sports change lives, and the words of the common purpose and you really see it coming through the teammates, the athletes in our communities...
And delivering the shareholder growth. And then from a community perspective, it's also really encouraging, inspiring, and proud of being part of what we do with our foundation, helping over 2 million kids access sports in this country, donating over $200 million because we do believe that sports have the power to change lives. And there are barriers for many children to play, whether it's equipment costs or registration costs, or access to safe fields and really pushing that and being part of it and everything we do is something we take very seriously. And as I said, I'm just grateful to be part of it.
So the theme today is thriving in an era of rapid change. So could you talk a bit about-- You're in retail, so things change daily, weekly. Obviously, we have a lot of stuff in society now. - It's changing very quickly. - Yeah. How does this help you stay focused as a group on what you're trying to do as a company? Yeah. It's a great question because you can-- Yes, retail is fast. I'll say CPG is similar, and you can get caught up in being incredibly reactive and going from a marketing perspective in particular where the wind takes you as these new platforms come out and these-- It just changes almost by the month. But this does help ground us and stay consistent in how we're thinking about what is our role with our athletes, what are we providing our athletes, and how do we truly enable that sports change their lives and that we help become the greatest sports company. So it does give us a North Star that you can turn to in the moments, in the days, in the weeks of chaos, which I think is natural for any company. And to your point, in a macro environment, it's only getting more dynamic, I'll say.
One thing I remember from our podcast, which we did six months ago or so, is, you're two years at the company or so, you came in and your CEO, who's remarkable, said to you, "Don't hurry to change anything. Take your time. Get to know us. Build relationships. Understand the business. Get to know your people." So I'd like you to talk about that in the context of how you came in two years ago and created your priorities, your job scope. Of course, this had a major role in it, what we're looking at on the screen. Could you talk a bit about your early months and the power of that advice? Yeah. I think it's incredible advice. I think it's also very consistent with a company that knows what its culture is and knows what will work and not work.
Again, not right or wrong. Very different from my other company where you get a new role and you're inspected within 30 days to make massive changes. That's sort of how they operated, and it was very refreshing. Lauren Hobart, who is an incredible CEO, did say that to me. She said, "Don't change anything. Just learn, sit, understand, and then figure out where you want to lean in." And I think I took that to heart. My team could tell me whether that's true.
But it is such an incredibly well run company, and the priorities were so clear that you don't need that person to come in and change. You need that person to understand where the environment's going and how we can be additive as a CMO and as a collective team to that and to continue to drive growth and find those pockets of growth where you can really lean into.
It was not a marketing department that was broken. It was a fantastic marketing department. My predecessor was incredible, and so it's just taking that now to the next level, leveraging everything that's coming out in marketing from a technology perspective, from a macroenvironment, from all the tools we have to talk to consumers and the expectations of consumers that are changing. Now I know one of the big themes for Adobe is personalization at scale. That is an expectation of consumers and we call athletes right now. And so how we do that is where I'm focused and not on change for change sake, which is something I think a lot of leaders do still make the mistake of. They change for change sake.
We're showing a slide now starting in 1948 up to the present. This is the history of Dick's starting with one store in Binghamton, New York. - Great brands are not built in a day. - Yeah. This slide certainly proves that. But, Emily, I would first like you to reflect on that. And are there any insights, lessons, learning we should draw from this walk through the history of Dick's? I'll just say I was so impressed. So Ed Stack, who started and grew the company after his dad opened that first store in Binghamton. When you go up to the store in Binghamton, which I had the opportunity to do about a year ago. It is so striking to walk into the store and realize it truly could be any mom and pop sports store in any town in America. And we had a few of these where I grew up. And the fact that it's now this, you know, almost $14 million empire built by one man and his vision is just it's humbling, and it's exciting. And I think it's just, you know, not to get...
Cheesy about it, but I think it's just such a great representation of the American dream of how you can build. Not cheesy. So it was interesting because I did that a year in, and it was just like, wow. You're every day in these beautiful stores that are what Dick's Sporting Goods is today, and you go back to this first one, and it's just it's so striking.
That said, we're still a relatively new company. We're still a relatively new brand when you think about when we really started marketing the Dick's brand, which was probably around 2010, 2011. So there's so much opportunity, and the company's done so well. And it's really got a spot, I think, in the minds of athletes in America, but there's so much more to come.
There's a great lesson, many lessons what you just said, but any of you working in a brand, always go back to the beginning. Yes. Where did it start? Why did it start? Who started it? What was their motivation? What was their purpose? What was the idea in their head? It's endlessly interesting, gives you more credibility, and there's always insights in it. It's true. Now this goes through 2024. We're in 2025 now, and you've been here two years. Let's assume you're here a bunch of years. I hope so. What would you like the next block on this chart to be to represent your time as CMO and Chief Athlete Officer at Dick's? Dick's is the epitome of sport in this country.
And you don't think of that now? I think we are a sporting goods company.
But when you think greatest name in sports, I'd like Dick's to be top of mind. - We're getting there. - Ambitious. It's good. Yeah.
Okay. We're going to flip a little bit. We just talked about Dick's as a case of a company thriving in these times. We're going to talk about leadership and thriving in these times, and we have a great leader up here on stage with me. And I want to set an overall context about what's going on with CMOs at large before we narrow in on Emily. And I have the great joy of doing a show every week, so I talk to top CMOs around the world. We get a lot of requests. We've had gotten a lot of requests over the last several years for me to be interviewed. So in the five-year anniversary of the show, we flipped the microphone, and Jonathan Mildenhall, who's one of my favorite CMOs and one of my favorite people in the world, interviewed me. And this is very Jonathan. He studied my career, and he studied the shows. And, of course, with AI, we can analyze these shows like crazy. I know what the big themes are in the last 12 months, 6 months, 18 months. He did that, and he structured his interview of me, what he called the C-print, the C-print for successful CMOs, and it's seven c's.
And I'm flashing them on the screen right now. And Jonathan and I talked about each one of them. Whoops.
And so to me, this represents, to give this context, a bit about what's going on with all of Emily's colleagues around the world and the kind of analysis or compendium of the things that drive a successful leader, successful CMO in these times of change. So, Emily, I'd like to turn to you and ask you of how do you react to that, first, and I'll stop at that. How do you react to that? And then we'll go on to something else.
I think it's a great list. I think they all feel very important, and leaning into them at different times and different strengths is going to be critical for any CMO now and in the future. I think the one that's really popping for me that probably would not have been on that list 10 years ago is commercial success. And the expectation, I would argue rightly so, of CMOs, not just to create brand campaigns but to really help drive growth and enable growth and lead the growth, leveraging all the tools in our toolkit. Yeah. Is there any one of those of the courage, creativity, curiosity, commitment, confidence, community, commercial success that you think right now for you...
In March 2025 is on fire for you or needs to be on fire? I think as a team, and this is credit to the team, not to me, our creativity is on fire in a positive way. We're launching a new campaign tomorrow. I wish it was today because I would show it, that I'm just so proud of building on what I think was an incredible year last year. You saw some of the clips in the video with our holiday campaign with J.J. Watt and what we did with Will Arnett and Kathryn Hahn on the e-com campaign and our creative round the Olympics. I think our team is just on fire on creativity.
Personally...
Where I would be focused in the next year is on commercial success and courage to really enable the vision that we talked about going from sports retailer to sports company because that requires different internal partnerships, external partnerships. It's a transformation, so it takes time. And in a questionable economy, you know? Day to day, you've gotta stay committed to the long term and not just the short term, which I think Dick's does very well, but that's one I think we're really going to have to, and I'm going to have to stay true to. Is there a beacon for you as you think about moving Dick's from a great sporting goods company to a great sports company? The athlete, I mean, it's somewhat an obvious answer, but it truly is the athlete. And what does that mean to them and what do they need from us and from other partner brands to really enable their athletic journey and truly make sports something that can change their lives for the positive.
You talked about creativity being on fire. Say a bit more about why.
What was the catalyst? What's driving it? Was there a milestone, a person, an event? I think the team had the courage and the commitment, some of the other words, to feel that we can and should be amongst some of the most iconic brands at least in this country...
And lean into celebrity in a different way and lean into sports moments with big spend on TV with creative in a different way. And so it's just...
A confidence that I think allowed us to get there.
Now when I had Emily on the show six months ago, she shared four lessons with me that are profound for her and that she put together for a presentation she was doing with some women leaders. And I want to share those today with you. Get to know yourself and be comfortable with it. Find your style, or personality, and make it work for you. Set high expectations, with support for people to reach them.
And develop a continuous learning mindset. So, Emily, we talked about these six months ago. Now as you look at them, is the list still valid? And is there anything else you would add to this, or is there something in there that you would like to underscore today? Good list. - This is a good-- - It's a good list. Yeah. - Good list. - I didn't think it would change.
To your point, when I talked about this originally, it was specific to female audience. I don't think it needs or should be. I think the first two are the ones I keep coming back to that...
In any position, you really have to spend the time to get to know yourself, who you are, what makes you tick, what makes you frustrated, how you react under stress, how you react when you're happy...
How you try to balance work and life.
And understand that, and I do mean be comfortable with it. That doesn't mean and this gets to the second one. That doesn't mean you shouldn't or don't need to flex that when you're in different situations, particularly a corporate situation. But I'm relatively open that I'm quite an introvert, which is not traditional for a CMO. It's not traditional for a CMO at a conference in Vegas.
But you get to know yourself, and you get to get comfortable with it, and you make it work for you. And I flex quite a bit in different situations to not be introverted, and then I need to retract to who I am and get my energy being alone. And I've learned that over time.
Set high expectations, with support for people to reach them. This is something that my favorite leaders and bosses over the years have done for me, that it's not a test, that it's really giving people the confidence and the courage to do more than they think they can do and making sure you're building them up so they can achieve that. I think that's the greatest gift a leader can give. I certainly have a lot of gratitude for the people that did that for me. And then continuous learning mindset, I think that speaks to the theme of this day and this conference. I mean, the world is changing. The world is changing so fast. I cannot wrap my head around so many of the things that are day to day in the news, but I think we have to try and not get overwhelmed. How do you do that? How do you build time for reflection and insights and thinking, especially in kind of job you're in, which is retail? You have to put it on your calendar. I live and die by my calendar. I mean, my calendar flexes a lot as everyone knows, but I do set time to do it, and I enjoy it. - So it's not a chore for me. - Yeah. But you have to do it practically, and you have to do it pragmatically.
Okay. I'm going off script here for a minute. - Uh-oh. - I want to go to your team over here. Because we're talking about personal leadership-- - Oh, boy. - And thriving in times of rapid change. Leaders are really only effective if the people that they're leading are inspired by the vision, by the person, by the culture of what's going on. So I want to ask you all over there, a volunteer or two, what's Emily like as a leader? And listen, she's a very honest person, so you don't have to be political here. I know you won't be. But what's she like as a boss? Anyone. Just stand up and go to the mic and say-- It's [INAUDIBLE].
[Kate] Anyone else from the Dick's contingent can weigh in. But I do think Emily is very, very, she talks about supporting her team and having people support her. I think she is incredibly supportive as a leader in terms of sharing in the success, setting them up, setting high bars for the team, and then making sure they have the resources to go and get the goals. So I think that's the word that came to mind first. Did you ever find her napping between 12:00 and 1:00? I haven't, but now I sit outside her office, so I'll be-- I gotta get a couch.
- Anyone else? - Thank you, Kate. Sorry to put you on the spot. Have a different thought.
No? No one else? Here we go. Oh, boy. - I'll get off the stage. - Hi, Josh. I get off the stage and come stand beside you, then you'll get up. [Josh] I'm actually in a different part of the organization, so I don't report in through Emily. But I think what's impressed me and that I've seen her do is really prioritize and the hard part of that as well, which I think is stopping to do things that may have been done historically. So I know you made a comment, Emily, about Dick's being very clear on our priorities, but we have a lot of them. And so really prioritizing and making sure the time and energy is invested on the most important ones is so important, and I think something I've seen you and your organization do well. - Thank you, Josh. - I appreciate that. Hey. Let's go to the general crowd here, not the Dick's Sporting Goods people, although you can ask questions too. So we have a few minutes left. We have mics here. Love to come to you with anything on your mind for Emily or myself. We're both very open, transparent people, so anything is fair game. So anyone want to ask anything? David Shing. Shingy.
[David] It's a long walk to the mic. - Hello, Emily. Hello. - How are you? I'm great. Thanks very much. I got a quick story about Jim Stengel first. - Is that okay? - Oh, boy. Amongst friends? Time to go. Time to go. Meeting's wrapped up. - He talked about being a-- - Buzzer's going. He talked about being a competitive athlete. I was in Milan with him to Flex, and we were presenting together, and at this party, Jim said, "I challenge you to this bike race." I'm a professional athlete, as you can tell.
And he must have bloody circled me about nine times. The little bastard. So, Jim, do not challenge him as anything is what I'm going to tell you. So that's a true story. The second thing I have for you is, when in this conversation, which has been delicious, thank you. - Oh, thank you. - You talk about things that are on fire. I would probably rephrase that in this climate because I didn't know whether on fire meant good or bad. That's just a note to self. But I do have a question for you. And it's this. If you're talking about the thing that you want as your legacy to be top of mind, sports brand, athlete seems to be your road you're going in. As somebody who isn't built like Nick Law and isn't an athlete, that's quite masculine and strong. So if 80% of the US population are in sports in some capacity at early age, what are the things that you would say in a rapidly changing time of how they access sport? What are the things that you would say and the themes that Dick would take on that would allow those who aren't athletic to feel athletic? Good question, Shingy. Thank you. - Fantastic. - That's for you. Yes. - Then I'll comment on what you're saying. - I'm thinking.
It's a great question, and you're genuinely having me thinking about whether that is an off-putting word to some, to be honest. How would I encourage anyone to be athletic or be involved in sports? Focus on the things that may not be to your point just about the physical. I talk to my kids a lot because one of them is not the best athlete, but being part of a team and the lessons they can learn from coaches and friends and being there to cheer for each other and the community aspect of that, I would focus on messaging that piece of it and not just the strong athletic piece of it. So that's where my head is going, but...
You've got me thinking about that. I mean, I went right to Nike as you were talking about that, and Nick has some experience with that brand.
Everyone's an athlete, potential athlete, and I think they have been very inclusive and wide, open minded about how they express that and bring that to life.
So good question, though. Very good question. Anyone else? Question from anywhere in the room. Here we come. - [Rob Jensen] So going back to tennis. - Oh. Is there any lessons from your matches that you bring back to your personal life to the workplace? You're about to go into the board meeting and you're like, if only I won that point. Maybe you can speak through how those two worlds collide and how, you know, sports, you try to bring back that culture a little bit. So who are you? - I love that question. - Where are you? - Where-- - Rob Jensen, avid tennis fan. - Okay. - At Steel. All right. That's super. Super. I have a thought on that. Do you want to start? You start. I have a thought too, but you go first. - It's such a mental game. - Yeah. It just is 80% mental. And when I was at P & G, we brought on Roger Federer as an ambassador for the company. And it was in my tenure where we did that, and I got to know him and his family and his agent. And I was having dinner with him once, and he just said, and this was at the time the greatest. You can argue he's not anymore, but he's still a great human being, one of the greatest tennis players of all time. He said to me, "I never think about the last shot.
I have the discipline to put it out of my mind. I never get down on a shot or a point that was awful." And he also said, "I always keep in mind that in any given day, someone I play may just have their day, and it's not my day.
And even when I'm losing, I keep thinking this might turn." So his mental attitude of look forward, keep going forward, don't let anything drag you down. I'm down 6-1 or 1-6, 2-5, it might turn.
And you could tell that in how he played. And I think it's great lessons for life, great lessons for tennis. And the guy, and I think the other lesson, he loved the sport.
He loved it and respected it.
And I saw him moved by many things of people who've gone before him. So he was in a career that he was extremely well suited to and passionate about.
I'll build on that. I agree with everything you said. What I find interesting with tennis is when I'm practicing or I'm in a clinic or I'm heading for fun, I can hit the ball pretty well, and I can hit the ball pretty hard. Lena sitting next to you was one of my tennis friends. I could hit it. When I get into a match where people are watching me, I can't hit. - Mental. - I tense up. - Mental. - Tense up. I don't like people. I have to get very-- So it's just-- So that, trying to remind yourself to relax and have fun and just think through, you know, what you're doing is just, I think, such a good analogy, not just for business, but for life.
- Great question. Thank you. - Great question. Yeah. Yes.
[Ahmed] Hello. Really nice conversation I'm having. My name is Ahmed. I'm a founder of a company, Imagine. Just quick, introduction. So we create all in one JNI platform. I'm coming from Pakistan to attend this amazing event. - Great. - Amazing overall session going on. I have two very critical questions. So we are a bootstrap company, and up to pretty good numbers, up to $15 million annual business rate. - Congratulations. - Yeah. Thank you. B2C market mostly, in our field of mobile app space and desktop, when you spend in some marketing questions, so you have to spend a lot of money to, you know, get customers in day one ROAS or day 30 ROAS. Return on ad spend is very less. I'm talking about the B2C market. Most of the competitors generally raise a lot of money to make the maximum, take most of the customers, right? And they make money later on the years. So for a bootstrap company, how we should be doing our marketing in order to remain on top? That's one of the question. Because many developers have a lot of money to spend in and get on top and they get rangled. That's one question. Second, as a CEO of a company, I have a passion of music. Super crazy from last 20 years.
I released my first song as well. But as you guys are talking about tennis, amazing, you guys are professionally CMOs and manage somewhat your passion. How to manage both things and if some-- I feel I'm super crazy in music as well and in my entrepreneurship as well. - Thank you. - Great. Go ahead. Do you want to take the first one? Yeah. You take the second one. I'll take the first one. So the question was how do you balance your passion for music and entrepreneurship.
You try to find time in the day or the week, and there's going to be some weeks that are out of balance and some weeks that are not. But my guess is that your passion for music and being involved in music gives you energy to do the entrepreneurship. - And so-- - Yep. I think you find your balance and you find what works for you and what energizes you. That's the name of the game, staying energized. Correct. Correct. Yeah. And your first question, marketing when you're small and you're a startup and you're a challenger and people have bigger budgets and so on and so forth, I mean, I would embrace who you are. And you saw the slide up here we had on Dick's about their belief, their purpose.
You can tell what that company is about, and everything they do emanates from that. I find so many young companies don't go through the discussions, the debates, the talking with consumers, customers to get to that clarity of who you are and why you are different.
And then once you have that, it doesn't often take a lot of money to build affinity with people. And so that's what I would do. Make sure you have the rigor to get to whatever your one pager is. You saw Dick's Sporting Goods today, whatever that is. And if you don't have that, you'll get very distracted. You won't build a brand.
You might build a transactional business. You won't build a brand.
Thank you. Yes.
- Oh, this is-- - It's a very tall mic. Right. [Jamie] Hello. I'm Jamie from Kellanova. Also from Michigan, previously Unilever, so we've always been-- Oh, yeah. Okay.
Emily, I'm really curious. When you presented the seven Cs and, Emily, you had already talked about your goal of becoming the epitome of sports. And your values as an organization around kids and youth. Our country and where we're at right now is in a state of turmoil, right, with our people.
To me, I thought you were going to say community because sports has always been a way to bring communities together. So how do you as a leader make those hard decisions of when you join a conversation of, like, where we are today in our country, given the critical role that sports has played over years and generations of our families and communities? Yeah. Look, it's a really good push, and community is a really important part of our strategy as a company, also the strategy for marketing. We have community marketers throughout the country to do just that.
I think, to your point, there is a...
Nonpolitical purity to sports and this idea of community that it's hard for most people to argue with and is positive. - Most people see it as positive for all. - Yeah. So leaning in there and enabling sports, both through our foundation and through the work we do with the company, is a place that you'll continue to see us push. Weighing in on the controversial issues around sports is not something that we want to usually get involved with just because we're focused on the bigger picture.
- Makes sense. - Good question. Also, I just want to say thank you. Every time I go into Dick's Sporting Goods, I see the sign that says, "No guns allowed," and it makes me feel very safe. - So thank you. - Aw. Thank you. That's great. That's good. Okay. We're going to wrap this up. I want to ask you, Emily, for one final thought to this audience that you want to leave them with from this wonderful discussion we've had today.
Well, one, thank you for listening to Jim and me. Thank you, Jim, for having me again and inviting me.
The world is changing. It is changing fast.
My thought is for any of the leaders in the room, we don't have all the answers, and so I think we have to go back to the basics on leadership, listening to our teams, enabling our teams, staying calm in the face of all of this change, and trying to wade through all the information out there to have some point of view on where this is all going, whether we're right or wrong, this remains to be seen. But cool under pressure and be good leaders to your team.
Yeah. And one thing I would-- I love that. One thing-- This little session we just had here today, a question gave Emily an idea, right? And so the fact that you're out, you're listening, you're asking, you're talking with people you don't normally talk with, more of that is needed. Agree. And we can't get into our holes and get into our igloos. Just so that's what-- Thank you, Adobe, for making this happen, but we should be doing this more and more because we'll learn. It's curiosity. We'll open our minds. We'll get ideas. We'll be better leaders, and I think we'll have a better world. - So on that note, thank you, Emily. - Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Adobe colleagues. Thank you, Dick's Sporting Goods people. Thank all of you. Great session. Really good fun.
