Leader in economic information of sport Nike fishes in Barça to reinforce its team in Europe with Spanish talent
Nike strengthens its finances in Europe. The American company, specialized in fashion and sports equipment, has hired the Spanish Nadia Castellano Sala as its new financial director in the football branch for her business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Emea).
Sala joined the leadership of Nike last September, from FC Barcelona, where she held the role of financial controller of the licensing and merchandising business for two and a half years. The executive was then promoted to director of this department, a position she held for eight months before being hired by Nike.
The Spanish is not an unknown face for the Oregon giant. Sala has passed through Nike twice in his professional career: he was part of the Customer Financial Services (CFS) department for two years in 2011, before spending a few months in the same position at Converse (brand owned by the group) and later rejoining to Nike as a finance and accounting specialist for four years.
Between 2016 and 2018, Nadia Castellano Sala was responsible for the financial analysis of Nike merchandising for Barça, before moving directly to the leadership of the Barcelona club. The executive takes up her new position at Nike from its European headquarters in the Netherlands.
Nike is in the process of restructuring its European division with the intention of reducing costs and centralizing resources
Last June, the business in Spain of the American giant was transferred to the Netherlands after implementing an employment regulation file (ERE) on eighty people at its headquarters in Barcelona, including some of the top managers of the subsidiary. Nike carried out similar processes in France, Italy and Germany.
This restructuring in Europe is part of a broader restructuring plan that also involved the departure of at least 700 workers at the group's headquarters in Beaverton (Oregon, United States). The goal is to create a "flatter and more agile" structure, according to the company.
Nike, the largest operator of fashion and sports equipment on a global scale, closed the first quarter of its exercise, until August, with a year-on-year growth of 16% in sales, to 12,248 million dollars, but reduced its forecasts for the end of the year due to disruptions in the supply chain. In Emea, the group increased its turnover by 15% compared to the first quarter of the previous year.