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April 18-19, 2017
Dana Point, California

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Mark King

President, Adidas Group North America

As president of adidas Group North America, Mark King oversees adidas in the U.S. and Canada and is responsible for driving the brand strategy and direction in this market. Mark began his current role in June 2014. 

Mark has a long and successful track record with the adidas Group. He was with TaylorMade for 34 years, beginning his career in the early 1980s as territory sales representative. The adidas Group acquired TaylorMade in 1997 and Mark was elevated to president in 1999 and then CEO in 2002. Under Mark’s leadership from 1999 to 2013, TaylorMade became the leading and most profitable golf company in the world, with sales increasing from $300 million to $1.7 billion.

Recently, Mark has led the adidas turnaround in North America, driving market share growth and creating a new energy for the business and culture. In 2016, Yahoo! named adidas Sports Business of the Year while Sneakerheads at Highsnobiety called adidas the Most Relevant Brand. Footwear News named Mark 2016 Person of the Year and Portland Business Journal named him 2016 Executive of the Year. Mark was named one of Sports Business Journal’s 50 Most Influential People in Sports Business in 2015. 

King was named Golf industry’s Executive of the Year in 2001 and was inducted into the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Sports Hall of Fame in 2002. He served as chairman of the National Golf Foundation and has been consistently named of the ten most powerful people in Golf. King has been profiled in some of the nation’s top business and industry publications including The Harvard Business Review, FORTUNE, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Business Daily, Footwear News and Brandweek. He has also been the subject of the television show Undercover Boss and appeared on The Apprentice as a business role model. 

Asserting that growth is a cultural mindset that must be infused into the bloodstream of every organization, King believes in setting goals and allowing people to drive the “how.” He believes companies must drive talent-wide organizations and create environments that allow and encourage everyone to lead organizational and industry change.  

Mark attended Northern Illinois University for two years on a golf scholarship then transferred to the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, from which he graduated in 1981 with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. 

Born and raised in Green Bay, WI, Mark is a self-proclaimed “sports guy” who played golf, basketball, football, baseball and hockey in high school. A father of two daughters, he resides in Portland, OR. Together with his daughters, he has raised more than $10 million for children charities around the world through their OneKind Foundation, positively impacting kids in Uganda, India, South Africa and across the United States.