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Creativity is the difference between aspiration and resource.
Driving Growth
Mark King knows how to drive a business. He led two incredibly successful turnarounds at two different global sports companies. As president of adidas North America, Mark led the turnaround of the brand and business, doubling market share in under three years and tripling sales in four years, creating a new energy for the company’s culture. Prior to adidas, Mark catapulted the TaylorMade business, growing it from $300 million to more than $1.7 billion in sales during his time as President and CEO.
Leading Change
Mark’s secret to success: In today’s fast-paced world, you need to constantly lead change. Companies stall because they think they already have all the answers or they follow a plan that no longer works. Mark knows successful companies have to constantly innovate and create new things the world has never seen before. Organizations have to change at the same pace—or faster—as the marketplace. You have to attune to the market, be factual, be adaptive and be relentless in innovation. Mark believes growth is a cultural mindset that must be infused into the culture of every organization. He believes in setting big dreams and allowing people to drive the “how.”
Creating Culture
Learned from his nearly 40-year business career, Mark says great companies aren’t about brands or products or even strategies. The only thing that allows a company to sustain success over a long period of time is the quality of people you have and the environment you create. Mark believes in creating the right atmosphere to unleash the potential of people and make extraordinary happen. Don’t fear failure. Have fun. Take risks. And then, you can breakthrough.
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Let go of the process. Let people make mistakes and let them fix it. It’s the best way we learn.
Biography
As Chief Executive Officer of Taco Bell Corp., Mark King is responsible for driving overall brand strategy and performance of the business in the U.S. and internationally. Drawing on his retail experience and track record of driving innovation, brand relevance and culture, Mark accelerates the innovation, sales growth and unique brand identity that makes Taco Bell a Category of One.
Before joining Taco Bell, Mark served as president of adidas North America from 2014-2018. Under his leadership, adidas market share doubled in under three years and sales tripled in four years. In addition, Mark cultivated new energy for the company’s culture resulting in the double number of employees at adidas, an industry-shattering retention rate, the highest employee net promoter score in the company and more than 500,000 job applications in one year.
Prior to adidas, Mark spent 34 years at TaylorMade, quickly rising from a territory sales representative to president of TaylorMade in 1999 and CEO in 2002. During Mark’s tenure as president and CEO, TaylorMade became the leading and most profitable golf company in the world, catapulting the business from $300 to more than $1.85 billion in sales.
Learned from his nearly 40-year career, Mark believes in creating the right atmosphere to unleash the potential of people to make extraordinary breakthroughs happen. As a leader, Mark steers with a belief system based in keeping a growth mindset, investing in people and encouraging an innovative culture to achieve success.
In 2017, Footwear News honored Mark with the number one spot on their Power 100 list and in 2016 they named him “Person of the Year.” Also, in 2017 and 2016, Mark was named “Executive of the Year” by the Portland Business Journal. He served as the chairman of the National Golf Foundation and was consistently named as one of the ten most power people in golf during his years at TaylorMade-adidas Golf.
Mark currently serves on the Board of Directors for the V Foundation Victory Over Cancer. Together with his daughters, he has also raised more than $10 million for children charities around the world through their OneKind Foundation.
Mark graduated from University of Wisconsin – Green Bay with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.