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Business is an unlikely hero: a force for good working to solve society's most pressing challenges, while boosting bottom line. This is social purpose at work. And it's a dynamic journey. Purpose 360 is a masterclass in unlocking the power of social purpose to ignite business and social impact. Host Carol Cone brings decades of social impact expertise and a 360-degree view of integrating social purpose into an organization into unfiltered conversations that illuminate today's big challenges and bigger ideas.
Carol Cone:
I'm Carol Cone and welcome to Purpose 360, the podcast that unlocks the power of purpose to ignite business and social impact.
Today, joining me is truly, I love the brand, it's Nike. And we have a truly inspiring leader joining us, someone who sits at the heart of purpose, sport, and cultural impact at one of the world's most influential brands. Vanessa Garcia-Brito is Nike's Chief Impact Officer, and she's joining us today to talk about an exciting new initiative that the company has launched and it supports Nike's long-term commitment to women and sport. What I love about Vanessa is that she embodies the philosophy she brings to her work. She often says she trains for work like an athlete, and you can feel that and you'll feel it in the way she leads in our discussion with discipline, clarity, marvelous energy, and a commitment to effective execution. She also is committed to love and really embracing her team members, helping them to reach their fullest potential. She knows purpose only works when it works, when it creates measurable change for people and when it drives growth and value for the business.
Today we're going deep into one of Nike's most exciting and meaningful new signature initiatives. It's called Coach the Dream. This program is defining what great coaching looks like, especially for girls who unfortunately drop out of sport at twice the rate of boys. Nike's research shows that girls love to play and they can play hard, yet too many start later and leave earlier because of invisible barriers, cultural pressures, or negative early experiences. And we know that the right coach at the right moment can rewrite that story. We'll talk about how the program came to life, the insights behind it, and the exceptional magic required to scale it globally. So join me for this amazing conversation. Let's begin.
Vanessa, welcome to Purpose 360. It's a delight to have you with us.
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
Thanks so much, Carol. It's a real pleasure to be here with you today.
Carol Cone:
And I'd like to just say that Vanessa is an amazing athlete herself. And so first, we're going to start talking about what's your favorite sport and what do you do and why does it make you feel amazing?
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
Well, it's a duel, if I'm honest. I call running is my boyfriend, and yoga is my girlfriend. They work in tandem. I really credit yoga for having the longevity I've had with my running, but there's no substitute for running. It just clears everything. It instantly actually does what yoga does, which is brings my mind, body, spirit all into one. You can just go your own pace, but also it's just that wonderful feeling of aliveness and the gratitude for being able to move in our bodies.
Carol Cone:
And it's interesting because I get that, but I do it with a horse. And I feel like when you jump with a horse, it is like flying. So you joined Nike in 2013, and you've had some amazing roles, including vice president of global communications for Purpose. And so we will get into that, but as a child ... I always like to go back with my guests. What influenced you, from your parents or your earliest years, that truly has helped to guide and shape what you do today?
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
Yeah. So Carol, I actually come from very humble beginnings, and I was surrounded with an abundance of love and resilience. My mother always had several jobs. There was never just one job. She was always working across several areas, and my grandmother actually helped to raise me. And together, they really instilled in me optimism, hope, grit, follow-through. Truly very early in life, also instilled the mindset around agency. No matter how life was, how bad life was or how bad things got, they really believed that we could do something about it. And really, as an individual, that we had the power, whether that was in how we approached our perspective, actual behavior, vision, imagination. Agency was a very big deal in our small home.
And I thought I would take all of that and put it into being a human rights lawyer. So that's actually what I tried to do. I went to law school. I actually enjoyed law school. For those out there wondering, I enjoyed law school. I enjoyed being a lawyer, but one of the things that I also realized is that you can be an advocate no matter what role that you're in. You don't have to be a lawyer or a ... Whatever that title may be. Wherever you are in life and whatever you're doing, you can be an advocate.
And in parallel to that, a golden thread has been sport for me. There has been a sport for every season of my life, whether it was swimming or dancing or track. I'm a brown belt in Taekwondo. You mentioned the ultramarathons. I've done a number of yoga teacher trainings. And so that is also something that has been consistent throughout my entire life, and I think that they have come together in a beautiful way in the work that I do right now at Nike.
Carol Cone:
That fantastic. So what does a chief impact officer do? What's your remit?
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
Right. So together, I think one of the beautiful things about impact at Nike, it's that it's not just one part of the business that is focused on it. We're all here, accountable and on board to deliver Nike's mission, to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. If you have a body, you're an athlete. Through our team, we do that through youth sport, really thinking about what should sport be looking like for the next generation of athletes, and inviting more people in so they can unleash their full potential. So for us, it's really about setting the vision and ensuring that we're bringing sport to more and more young people through the lens of the platform that Nike brings.
Carol Cone:
Oh, that's fantastic. What is your superpower?
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
Love.
Carol Cone:
Oh, that's fantastic. And how does it manifest, let's just say, with your team?
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
Yeah. The best thing about me ... Actually, you're speaking to me, but you really need to talk to my team. Best thing about me is my team. When I think about legacy, I think about my team. I think often we say love, and people get a little bit confused about love. They think about touchy-feely, sensitive. And all of those things can be true, but I think love is one of our most powerful emotions. It is ... What wouldn't you do for love? And it's also an emotion that's regenerative. It's infinite. You can just continuously make space for more and more and more people. And it also is a force mechanism for honesty. You need to be honest with those you love. You need to be empathetic but also have a great level of candor and respect.
And also, I say this to my team all the time, it's not transactional. I don't need you to love. I'm not loving you so that you can love me back. That is not necessary. It's not for everybody. It is more I want everybody to know that that is actually what grounds me and also what I'm very intentional about putting out into the world.
Carol Cone:
Oh, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. So since you had the role for about three years of VP of purpose communications. I'd love you just to talk about Nike's purpose. It's been very consistent, I believe, over the decades, but maybe it's been tweaked and expanded. But can you talk a little bit about that before we get into the signature initiative we're going to talk about today, which is your coach's initiative?
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
Sure. That was such an exciting role because while I stepped into that role and I was the first one in it, it wasn't the first time that Nike had purpose, right? Nike's been around for over 50 years. And for over 50 years, it's been grounded in sport and the manifestation of that around human potential, how to break down barriers. Whether you're an elite athlete or you're an everyday athlete or you're a soon-to-be athlete, that has been pretty consistent.
In that role, what was fantastic about it is you get to hear from employees all over the world. We had thousands and thousands and thousands of different cultures, different contexts, different life stages. And while everybody casts their unique and singular purpose, there was a really beautiful connection across what brings people together at Nike, and that is their love of sport and their love for sharing it.
And so that's where I think you marry both consistency, DNA heritage, together with paving the future or staying relevant, ensuring that people are coming along with you. The world around you is continuously changing, and so we're really alert to that. And also, we're often in the business of helping to change that as well, trying to pave the future, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it changes what you're rooted in. And for that, for us, sport really has been that.
Carol Cone:
Yeah. I mean, Nike has had so many iconic campaigns. Is there one or two that just gives you goosebumps?
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
Oh, my goodness. There is the If You Let Me Play from many years ago. It was true then. It's true today. One of the things that we know to be true is how important it is to listen to the athlete's voice. And we have that asterisk. So if you have a body, you're an athlete. In that case, it was young girls talking about what sport could do for them and the whole universe of possibilities that could open up for them.
Carol Cone:
It's beautiful. And if you don't mind, I printed out the copy, if I could read it because I think it just is so powerful. "If you let me play, I will like myself more. I will have more self-confidence. I will suffer less depression. I will be 60% less likely to get breast cancer. I will be more likely to leave a man who beats me," which was amazing for a young child saying that, a young girl, "I will be less likely to get pregnant before I want to. I will learn what it means to be strong, if you let me play sports."
I mean, it gives me chills to this day, so many years later. So I'm so glad that that is one that gives you goosebumps, and it also begins a thread of Nike looking at sport. It's not just the boys. It's not just the men. It's the girls and the women. So I love that.
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
Absolutely. If I can mention another one, Carol, also, just to bookend it, we have a short film that Emma Hayes did the voiceover for on the power of a coach.
Carol Cone:
Oh, love it. Love it.
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
If you bookend those two, the conversation that is happening between those two voices and those two communities is really important and also continues to speak of where we've been and where we can go.
Carol Cone:
Make kids' dreams possible through the love of coaching, you believing in the person behind the jersey. Dreams take a love of the game and a coach who believes. It's extraordinary. We'll put that, and when we get into your coaching program, we will really dive deeper because it's so powerful.
And I know that you have this mantra that says, "If you can see it, she can be it." Can you talk about how it came about, and talk about the data about how girls ... They're in sport, but they're dropping out dramatically. So just give us the context of how this got shaped.
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
We were founded on the relationship between a coach and his athlete. So it's in our DNA. We know how strong that relationship is, and also we know what it can put out into the world. We are here 50 years later, still building off of that fantastic relationship.
And then the trends. You've just said it. Globally, only one in five kids gets the movement that they need, the physical activity that they need. So I want everyone to understand also that the statistics for all kids are bad. And for girls, yes, they're worse. They're falling out of sport at twice the rate as boys.
And one of the big challenges for girls also is that they're falling out of sport at two different age groups. So earlier in their lives, somewhere between the ages of six and seven, and then again between the ages of 11 and 13.
So when we started to get really deeper into it in terms of what are those barriers, what's from keeping them from participating and also staying in sport, we learned a couple of things. One, it's about access. There needs to be programming that speaks to her, where she sees herself in there. She understands that there's a belonging there. It should be fun. What we hear from a lot of kids is that maybe this isn't for me because it just doesn't feel fun. That's crazy because we know it can be fun. So that's another element around that.
And what we heard specifically, not only girls but came through really sharply for girls, was how important it was for them to have coaches that look like them, that share their experiences and backgrounds, where they could feel heard and understood. And especially in that 11 through 13 age group, they want their coaches to be able to talk to them about the changes that are happening in their bodies.
And so that was really reinforced through the work that we did with Dove on Body Confident Sport. Their voice came through really clearly. Their coaches are make or break in their experiences. They need someone to be able to talk to them about their periods and whether that's going to affect how they play and how they should think about it and what product is available to her.
And I think one of the things ... Not to say most importantly, but as importantly, is flipping that script around, to understand that it's not about what your body looks like, but about what your body can do. It's a great moment in your life to be able to discover that, but we really need the role of coaches, all those coaches out there, to feel equipped and empowered to be having those conversations in a way that feels safe and caring and also relevant to these young girls.
Carol Cone:
Was there a seminal moment that someone said, "We're going to do this"?
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
What we were hearing from the community organizations that we work with, from girls themselves, from all of our different stakeholders, were ... There are all these different resources. There's some pretty good agreement on what good coaching looks like and what quality coaches can offer, but we haven't necessarily been in the same room together or we aren't necessarily bringing all of our voices to build up to more.
And so we came across the concept around ... Okay, well, what if we start this coaching revolution? We had a Coach the Dream summit here at our world headquarters. We had one in Tokyo. We had one in LA. We've had one in Paris. So we've had a number of different experiences all around the world to galvanize all of our partners in the community of people who are in this space, to supercharge or provide some more momentum to what is happening.
Carol Cone:
You talked about Dove, and I know you have other partners too. You've got Spotify and you work with Lego in China. And so I'm curious about your philosophy about partnerships, and then how the Spotify one came about. That's fascinating.
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
Our philosophy, we know that we cannot solve this problem by ourselves, but this problem is solvable. I think this is what is exciting about this space. And so when we think about partnerships, where we think about who are other organizations that share our vision, that are also complementary. We know that what we bring to the table is our knowledge of sport and athletes and this ecosystem around that, but that's not all you need.
We hear from girls and young women and athletes about the role that music plays in their lives. And for a lot of girls also who may not see themselves as athletes yet, they do move their bodies. They love to dance. They love to listen to music. And so we're not asking them to meet us where we are. We're saying, "We're going to meet you where you are."
And that's where the collaboration with Spotify came in. They've got a list of music and they've got their challenge on how to move every day, but the power is in their hands. So that was really a great mix of bringing to the table different knowledge and different skills and different platforms, and we're seeing some really positive responses that have come out of that.
Carol Cone:
Let's go backwards. What makes a great coach? And also for girls, does it have to be a woman?
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
I would say all kids primarily need caring coaches.
Carol Cone:
Caring coaches.
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
So caring coaches, adults who are willing and curious and available. The relationship between coach and athlete is one of trust. I trust what you're sharing with me. I trust that you're going to be here for me. I trust that the knowledge you're sharing with me is credible.
So does it need to be a woman? It needs to be a caring adult, and the girls need coaches that are representative of where they're coming from. And that can come in many different shapes and sizes.
The flip side of that is that we know that all kids, boys and girls, would really benefit from women coaches.
Carol Cone:
I'd love to get into something very specific you created for Coaching the Dream, the Coaching Girls Guide. It's got a fabulous introduction. It's really got wonderful sections. Can you just talk a little bit about how you created it and also why it's so important to have something like that to scale this around the globe?
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
Yeah. One, it's really easy to talk about ... I shouldn't say easy, but we don't just want to put out an invitation for people to become coaches without empowering and equipping them on the how to do that, because while it's incredibly fulfilling and it's also low barriers of entry if you want to become a coach, whether it's a volunteer coach or other areas. There are many opportunities to do that. It's a whole different game when you're in front of those young kids and don't have any guidance or tools. There's not as much training available, especially for volunteer coaches as there can be, especially, to make sure that the quality and good coaching comes through.
Carol Cone:
How many of the guides do you know have been distributed? Do you have a sense of that?
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
So we distribute it through our partner organizations, but we also have the nike.com/coaching site where people can download it for free, et cetera. I think it's gotten some good scale. We have a saying here at Nike, "There is no finish line," so there's no finish line from that standpoint as well.
Carol Cone:
I love that. So let's talk about impact in terms of a little bit more of the vision. What societal or generational shifts do you believe we might see?
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
Kids today, they are probably working through more stress and trauma than ever before. And so in terms of one of those shifts that we're seeing is also this focus around mental health and how do we get more upstream on that. We do some work with one of our partners, the Center for Healing and Justice Through Sport. And through them, we've learned a lot about what is happening with kids, especially in this age group, and how they're navigating through these different times for them.
We've also learned from them that when you're under so much stress and dealing with trauma and all these troubles, there's the concept of brain dysregulation, right? You're on edge, you are more reactive. The stress really just comes out in so many different ways.
They talk about how nothing heals like sport. Nothing heals like sport, because repetitive rhythmic patterns can really help get the brain back into the regulatory state. And we know that it's important to process emotion through your body, through movement. You've got to work that through. It helps to calm the mind. It creates more confidence. It also creates more space for the belonging that we talk about.
Carol Cone:
That's wonderful. I'm really glad that you're approaching that and you have that vision for your coaching work as well as just the role that sports can play. I want to ask you a question. You've integrated with so many girls. You've probably been a coach, or know coaches. Was there one story or a word or an insight that a girl ... That something happened and it sticks with you forever?
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
Yeah. Carol, I have a 12-year-old niece. My nieces and nephews are the light of my life. I adore them. They know this. And my 12-year-old niece is ... Her sport is volleyball. She loves it. And I mean, she is training at home, she does her school team, she does her club team, all the things. And we don't live in the same city, but whenever she's doing her tournaments there, I am there. I am committed to being her biggest cheerleader.
And at one of her conferences just last year, I was watching the teams and specifically her team, and something was really off. And right in front of me, I saw all the things that we talk about happening in real time to my own niece. She was having a very bad experience with this particular coach. Not only her. You could see the enthusiasm that these girls went out with just completely get toned down.
When I came by, as they were doing their shifts and they had a break, I came over and a couple of them were ready to ... They were like, "We're not going to play anymore." And she says, "I just don't want to do it." And I said, "You don't want to do it, or you're not having a great experience? What are you feeling? Tell me more." And so they all started to complain about ... We were talking about just the unfairness or how they weren't feeling seen. They couldn't understand why those choices were being made. And also, they were not having fun. And they had decided in less than five minutes. In less than five minutes, they had decided, "I am not playing anymore."
Carol Cone:
I'm over it. I don't want to do it anymore, yeah.
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
And I was like, "No, no, no, no, no. This is not about you. You need a better coach."
Carol Cone:
Yeah. That's a great, great story. Nike is a business and it's a publicly held company, and you are chief impact officer. So I'm curious about the type of measurement and reporting that you have to your senior colleagues so that they see your progress and they go, "Fantastic, Vanessa, keep doing it."
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
Yeah, absolutely. So we have five-year goals. So we just started our next tranche of five-year goals. We track that on a quarterly and annual basis because we're regularly learning. Is it working? Is there something new that we don't know about? Is it not? Is there some intervention? Has something changed with either the partners that we have or in the cities that we work, or there's a new sport, or what has changed?
And also, the discipline across our entire team. The beauty of having sport as a focus is that we're able to drive that consistency. And there's a lot of competing interests out there, and people are always eager to see if we can go in one direction or another, but this really helps to keep the compass of our work clear.
Carol Cone:
And this may be trade secrets, so you don't have to share it, but is there anything special that you've learned about reporting progress against your social impact goals that you're looking eyeball to eyeball to CMO, CEO, whatever, and they go, "Got it. This is a terrific report."
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
I think it's being honest, being honest about what's working and what's not working. We've had all sorts of things thrown at us. We went through a pandemic. That really changed volunteering and where kids could play, if kids could play, and we had to adjust our thinking around that. But the adjustment was not ... We're going to stop. It was around, okay, the circumstances have changed, and that was a conversation. Here's what we're seeing. Here's what we're seeing, and this is why it might be slower here. We might accelerate over there.
I love to think about it as freedom within a framework. If you can all agree on what it is that we're trying to achieve and that the path there is well-informed, then you've got some freedom to flex over here, be agile, stay agile while still making that consistent progress against that goal.
Carol Cone:
And I love that you've talked about honesty, about the clarity, in that we've achieved this goal, we need this modification. That's wonderful. As we begin to wind this down, do you have one or two pieces of advice for colleagues who are chief impact officers?
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
Sure. I'll say two pieces. One is the personal. I've already shared the most important conversation you can have is the conversation you have with yourself. I think it's really important to know who you are and what drives you. We talked about the athlete mindset. I also talk about training for my job like an athlete. I firmly believe that you can't give what you don't have. So if you're trying to give energy, you need energy. If you want to share inspiration, you need to be inspired, right? If you're bringing joy, you have to be joyous, but you have to be really honest with yourself about where you are at any moment in life, and then being very realistic about whether you can offer that or not and how you get that into your own lives to be able to give it.
My team knows this about me. I don't ask them to do anything I'm not willing to do myself. That's why I'm out there in these gritty Portland rainy mornings, putting in my miles through the mud, eating water. I've got to be willing to do anything that I'm asking of them. So I think from that, that's an offering from the personal side of things.
From the business side of things, I think it's really important to do what your business, what that corporate setting, is really good at. One of the things that I don't have to convince people on is that we should be in sport.
Carol Cone:
Yeah. That's right. It's your lifeblood. Well, this has been an amazing conversation, and you are so generous with your insights. Vanessa, I have to ask one other question. For young people, they want your job or someday they want to have a job like you. What's your advice for young people? I'm always asked, and I love to coach and mentor young people, but what's your advice?
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
I think one, know that you can change the world from whatever role that you are in. Don't chase the title. Get very clear about what kind of difference you want to make in the world, and whether that's a particular superpower or skillset that you have or a topic that gets you up in the morning without an alarm clock. You'll know it when you feel it, but get clear about that because the universe has a sense of humor.
Carol Cone:
The universe has a sense of humor. That's great.
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
Another one is make your talent undeniable. It doesn't mean that you might get that job that you think that you really, really desire, but at least you'll know it's because maybe they didn't want the best person for that role. Make your talent undeniable.
And then I've got a statute here that I was given because I'm a big advocate for ... Those areas that you care about, you have to care more than anybody else in the world about them. If not, that person who cares more is probably going to get it because they went the extra mile.
So that brings us right back to the first piece. Get really clear about that, because it can't be about everything. For those areas that you say are really priorities, that you really care about, then you've got to care more than anybody else.
Carol Cone:
I love it, though. I totally agree with you on that. You've got to care more. You've got to try more if you want to get that dream. I always love to give the last word to my guest and turn the mic over to you. So is there anything, Vanessa, that you want to add or that you want to emphasize?
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
Thank you, Carol, and that's incredibly generous of you as well. I am going to invite everyone to really think about becoming a coach. We truly believe that there's a coach inside every one of us. And that can be a coach of yourself. Start at home. It can be being that just supportive, encouraging person in a young person's life. I invite you to go to the nike.com/coaching if you want more tools and resources and do more formal coaching as a volunteer or on any part of that spectrum. For anyone who's wondering, "Can I really change the world?" You can really change an individual's world. And if you start with that young person, I don't know anything that is more fulfilling than that.
Carol Cone:
Vanessa Garcia-Brito, it has been such a delight to have this conversation. I've wanted to talk with someone at your level at Nike for a very long time, so I greatly appreciate your insights. So I'd love to have you back. If you have something new to announce, please reach out. So thank you so much. You have just been a delight to chat with.
Vanessa Garcia-Brito:
Oh, it's been my pleasure, Carol. And of course, I'd be delighted to return.
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