A senior Nike executive resigned after a recent news report revealed his son had used his corporate credit card to help his lucrative resale sneaker business.
Ann Hebert, who worked at Nike for more than 25 years, was recently the company’s vice president and CEO in North America. A spokesman told CBS News on Tuesday that Hebert “made the decision to give up Nike.”
His 19-year-old son, Joe Herbert, told Bloomberg Businessweek about his operation to buy a bunch of sneakers and turn them around for higher profits. In one case, he said he gathered more than 15 people to spread a website that sold pairs of coveted Yeezy Boost 350 Zyon sneakers and then used bots to avoid a system designed to limit purchases to one pair per customer. He said he bought Yeezys worth $ 132,000 on a credit card and resold them for a $ 20,000 profit.
To prove his company’s income, the teenager sent a financial statement to a Bloomberg reporter to get an American Express corporate card, and her mother’s name was on it.
Last year, Ann Hebert was promoted to be Nike’s vice president and CEO in North America, an action the company declared “fundamental to accelerating our direct consumer offense.” The strategy would reduce reliance on factory outlets and push customers to buy sneakers in their app. As Bloomberg noted, the initiative “helped fuel the boom in the resale of sneakers.”
A Nike spokeswoman told Bloomberg, however, that she disclosed relevant information about her son’s company in 2018 and that Nike found no conflict of interest. Her son also claimed she was so “up to Nike as to be away from what she does” and never received inside information from her.
According to Bloomberg, Hebert shared information about upcoming online versions to subscribers who paid in a chat group. He stated that he had no inside information; instead, he said his business knowledge stemmed simply from living in Portland, where Nike bases its operations in the United States.
“If you know the right people here, this is the city to sell shoes to,” he told Bloomberg. The right people “can give you access to things that, for example, a normal person would not have access to.”
Hebert’s company’s Instagram account includes a picture of hundreds of boxes of sneakers, containing some of the most coveted pairs available.
CBS News turned to the account for comment, but did not respond immediately.