It’s been quite a while since I finished university and, to be honest, I had almost forgotten what it feels like to sit in an auditorium with fellow students and listen to a lecture. Therefore, I was really excited to accompany Jan Brecht, CIO of the adidas Group, to the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg only a few days ago. Together with two of his senior managers, Ingo Winterhoff and Christian Martin, Jan held an exceptional lecture, providing insights into “New Retail Technologies”.
Ever since our CEO Herbert Hainer presented in 2010 our five-year strategic business plan ‘Route 2015’, he has always been very clear about one thing: the adidas Group aims for quality growth that needs to be first and foremost sustainable. One way to foster sustainable growth is for example by investing smartly into our brands. Another way is by continuously improving efficiency. This might be achieved on an organisational level or through innovations in the supply chain: if, for example, we manage to decrease the amount of fall-out materials, we minimise cost and become more efficient. There is a lot of room for creativity to improve efficiency. Through relentlessly focusing on such initiatives, the adidas Group managed to achieve a pretty strong result in terms of its gross margin.
My name is Paul Seline and I joined adidas in 1992. Since then – starting with the FIFA World Cup in the USA in 1994 – I have had the opportunity and tremendous privilege to contribute to, manage elements of, and then lead adidas efforts related to 6 World Cups. Currently, I am the Global Project Lead at adidas for 2014 FIFA World Cup Project. And while for most people, a World Cup starts on the day of the opening game, for adidas and for me things are already in full swing…
My daily business is garment development. More precisely I work in the ‘Inline Training business’ for Apparel Creation, and head the BU Women’s Development team. Within this area we handle the whole sampling process from design sketch to commercialization, including workmanship advice, production feasibility checks, fit information and material expertise. We also work very closely with Costing, and are in close contact with the factories and our back offices in Asia.
When I read about the Ambassador Program , I immediately applied for it. For me, it was important to experience a new area outside of Development which would help me understand more about actually getting the products into the market. Now I had the chance to do this. The process was smooth and my seniors were very supportive.
In response to our Global Operations team’s request for new global cross functional career development opportunities, we developed a tailored talent scheme called the ‘Ambassador Program’. Sponsored by Global Operations Senior Management team, it gives candidates the unique chance to swap jobs with colleagues in Global Operations from across the world for a set amount of time.
