GLOBAL SESSION: Adidas: NWOW (New Way of Working) – THE EVOLUTION
In developing the Adidas Group’s multi-year business plan leading to 2015, the organization found they needed to overcome certain internal obstacles that impeded their progress. As a result, the NWOW (New Way of Working) was developed to help the organization move forward and ensure they had every clear opportunity for success. This NWoW has now become a foundational building block in the development of a new people strategy the Group will instill in its new business plan, called “Creating the New”, that focuses upon the world in 2020. This transformation has global reach and implication as it touches all employees in all geographies and is shared across all brands of the Group. Tate will look back on the NWoW journey and the learnings from it. He will then look forward on how the Adidas Group views the future, the people strategy that will be a central point of the success-factor, and HR’s key role in it all.
Gregg Tate, SHRM-SCP, GPHR
Gregg is a 25 year veteran of the adidas Group. The global organization of the company consists of 12 markets, doing business in over 190 countries through subsidiaries and joint ventures. They have 46,000 employees worldwide, and approximately 70% of these employees are in the Commercial segment of the company.
Gregg is a Global HR Professional with HR leadership experience on three continents, having lived and worked in the US, Europe and Asia. Currently, he is Sr. Vice President of Human Resources – Commercial, based at Headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany. He leads a global department that provides comprehensive HR Business Partner Support to the adidas and Reebok Brands, plus the three (3) global Sales Channels - Wholesale, Retail, eCommerce - supporting the full range of employees from CSO’s and CMO’s to Retail Shop Staff.
Gregg joined the adidas Group in the United States in 1988 as Manager of Distribution and Logistics. In 1990, he became Director of Human Resources for adidas America and held this role until his move to the HQ in 1998.
Prior to adidas, Gregg held Human Resources and Operations Management roles with a US-based Textile manufacturing company.
Gregg is a 1979 graduate of Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He holds a Global Professional Human Resources (GPHR) certification from the Human Resources Certification Institute and is a frequent speaker on Leadership, Motivation, Employee Engagement and other HR-related topics.