Moments of impact from Pete Rox's career
NikeWhile working with Steve at Matchbox, we faced a significant challenge in our college sales process: lengthy app review times were creating friction and slowing down our ability to close deals with educational institutions. The extended review cycles were hampering our growth trajectory and making it difficult to scale our college partnerships effectively. To address this bottleneck, Steve and I developed a dedicated iPad app specifically designed to streamline the application review process for college customers. This solution was tailored to the needs of educational institutions and transformed how they could evaluate and adopt our platform. The impact of the iPad app was substantial and contributed directly to the company's success trajectory. By eliminating the app review bottleneck, we accelerated our college sales pipeline and helped position Matchbox for a successful initial public offering (IPO). This accomplishment demonstrated our ability to identify critical friction points in the sales process and deliver technical solutions that drove meaningful business outcomes.
Nike · COOI identified a critical challenge facing the brand: our street credibility had become stale, threatening our cultural relevance and connection with core consumers. The brand needed to reconnect with its heritage and the authentic voice of the sneaker community to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving market. To address this, I led the strategy to release the retro Jordans line. Rather than relying solely on internal market research or traditional data, I took a direct approach by engaging with the streets—speaking to the community, understanding what resonated with sneaker culture, and identifying which classic Jordan silhouettes would generate the most authentic excitement and demand. This grassroots insight informed our product selection and release strategy. The results were exceptional. We crushed sales targets, and the company's stock price reached an all-time high (ATH). Beyond the financial metrics, the retro Jordan releases successfully reinvigorated the brand's cultural positioning, reconnecting us with the authentic sneaker community and reestablishing our leadership in the space.