Portland, Oregon, United States
I’ve always been drawn to the geometry of things. Cities. Factories. Teams. Ideas. Products. The hidden patterns that determine how people move, how decisions get made, and how things become real. When I land in a new city, I walk. Or I find a bike. I want to feel the pace of the street, the alleys, the conversations, the social tensions, and the cultural current underneath it all. That same instinct has shaped my work. I help teams build the architecture behind great product. For me, product creation is all about problem solving. Sometimes the problem belongs to the consumer. Sometimes to the athlete. Sometimes to the organization, buried in unclear roles, broken handoffs, weak rhythms, or a system that cannot carry the idea it wants to scale. I spent nearly three decades inside Nike, with 14 years across Asia. That gave me scale, pressure, cultural fluency, and deep respect for how world-class product gets made. But Nike is not the point. The point is what the work taught me. Great product does not come from talent alone. It comes from trust, clarity, timing, craft, consumer truth, manufacturing reality, and the discipline to know when an idea is truly ready. I have seen strong ideas fail because the system was not ready. I have seen quiet ideas become global platforms because the right people, partners, and rhythm came together. Today, through Spicewood Collective, I work with founder-led brands, growth teams, creators, and technical builders across footwear, apparel, materials, and manufacturing. I help make sense of the hard questions: What are we really building? What problem are we solving? What needs to be protected? Where is the system breaking? What is ready to scale? My background spans consumer insight, Asia manufacturing, materials, partners, product development, commercialization, and team building. I helped scale Flyknit into a billion-dollar platform, led Nike’s Global Apparel Flyknit Studio, opened Nike’s first apparel R&D center in Sri Lanka, grew the Footwear Innovation team in Taiwan from 5 to 30, and helped bring Nike Forward and the Phenom Bra to scale. What I bring is a way of seeing what others often miss. I move between founder instinct and factory reality. Between creative ambition and commercial pressure. Between what the consumer feels and what the system can deliver. I am open to advisory work, founder partnerships, board and operating roles, and the right executive opportunity. Reach out if you are building something real and need someone who can see the whole system without losing the soul of the idea.
Spicewood Collective is an independent innovation practice built to help teams imagine, build, and scale what comes next. I partner with brands, founders, and athletes to explore new ways of making, create performance-driven solutions, and shape products and stories that move culture. My work spans innovation strategy, product creation, emerging materials, creative direction, and building the global, cross-functional partnerships and ecosystems required to bring bold ideas to life.
• Lead, manage, and inspire the Global Apparel Flyknit Innovation team, driving platform management and innovation to enhance Nike’s competitive edge through cutting-edge athlete performance solutions. • Build and lead an in-house Knit Studio dedicated to disrupting, rethinking, and redefining knitting technology. Strategically explore and implement advanced methodologies to maximize the platform’s potential, driving superior athlete performance and delivering premium consumer experiences. • Position the Apparel Flyknit Studio as a best-in-class development center, consultancy, creative agency, and diverse production services. Operate at the intersection of advanced digital computational tools, traditional knitting craftsmanship, and the latest advancements in textile and yarn sciences.
• Developed and drove Nike Forward technology/capability strategy to evolve platform and maintain Nike as an industry leader. • Established and maintained relationships with key manufacturing partners focusing on long-term strategies for capacity management, capital investments, technology evolutions, talent capabilities, and process efficiency. • Built a vision, strategy, and business plan to support the successful scale and commercialization of Nike Forward across Nike Apparel product creation units. • Managed and evolved tools and processes that track projects, workload, costs, and deliverables, and hold teams accountable to deliver.
Established, built, and led a first of its kind Apparel innovation creation center in Sri Lanka with a world class manufacturing partner. Creating new bandwidth for additional capabilities in country centered around design thinking and human centric principles, all focused on delivering world class revolutions to the market place.