Market Conditions Don’t Determine Growth … You Do!
June 18, 8:30 to 9:45 a.m. Mark King, former CEO, Taco Bell Corp. and TaylorMade, and former president, adidas North America In any flat market, there are companies that shrink and those that grow. As everyone knows, during such times there is only one way to grow: Take market share from your competitors. This is precisely what TaylorMade did under King's leadership. From 2000 to present day, golf has been a no-growth market. During that time, TaylorMade quadrupled its size from $300 million to $1.2 billion and continues to show solid growth. One of King's core beliefs centers around the concept of growth as a cultural mindset that must be infused into the bloodstream of the organization at every level. It is the leader's responsibility to establish this and be a tireless promoter of it.
In this keynote address, King will cover these key ideas:
- Vision and strategy are meaningless without a fully engaged staff.
- Setting goals and challenging people to drive the "How." The results will astound you.
- Creating an environment where people have a sense of belonging.
- Creating energy and changing minds ultimately drives sustainable results.
- Changing the rules of the game.
As the CEO of Taco Bell Corp., King was responsible for driving overall brand strategy and performance of the business in the United States and internationally. Drawing on his retail experience and track record of driving innovation, brand relevance and culture, King accelerated the innovation, sales growth and unique brand identity that makes Taco Bell a Category of One. Before joining Taco Bell, he served as president of adidas North America from 2014 to 2018. Under King's leadership, adidas market share doubled in under three years and sales tripled in four years. In addition, he cultivated new energy for the company's culture resulting in double the 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, King spent 34 years at TaylorMade, quickly rising from a territory sales representative to president of TaylorMade in 1999 and CEO in 2002. During his tenure as president and CEO, TaylorMade became the leading and most profitable golf company in the world, catapulting the business from $300 million to more than $1.85 billion in sales. In 2017, Footwear News honored King with the number-one spot on its Power 100 list and in 2016 they named him "Person of the Year." King was named "Executive of the Year" by the Portland Business Journal in 2016 and 2017. He served as the chairman of the National Golf Foundation and was consistently named as one of the 10 most power people in golf during his years at TaylorMade-adidas Golf. King 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. 
