In an apparent shock to the executives at Nike, CIO Anthony Watson, 37, resigned after a short ten months. The implications are that Watson was not pleased with gay life in small Portland, Oregon. On his Twitter account on Wednesday night, Watson said:
“Thank you for all the enquiries. Today I left Nike for personal reasons. There is honestly nothing “mysterious” about my departure. Nike is a great company, with amazing people. It’s just my personal circumstances changed. My leaving has nothing to do with Nike or any vendor. I wish Nike every success for the future. It’s a wonderful company.”
Watson joined Nike from Barclay’s Bank where he was located in the urban Mecca of London. Voted one of the top ten most influential LGBT leaders by Financial Times, Watson reputedly thought that life in Portland did not meet his lifestyle expectations. Portland does have a thriving LGBT community but is much smaller in scale than that of other world class cities where Watson could find employment.
Watson’s departure raises some interesting questions about recruiting talent at major corporations that have corporate headquarters in smaller cities. Whereas Dell have been a driver in Austin, Texas’s transformation into a trendy, world class city, Nike has not had the same halo effect on the city of Portland. Are corporations going to have trouble recruiting top talent if they do not have locations in large metropolitan areas? Will LGBT talent not move to cities or states that do not provide marriage equality and other LGBT civil rights? Are Millenials making career decisions based upon factors other than salary?
I’ve been to Portland, Oregon. It’s a beautiful, relentlessly HIP city with a colorful, thriving LGBT community. By most accounts Anthony Watson’s salary was somewhere in the $300,000 range. He gave that up because Portland didn’t meet his “lifestyle” needs? Wow, my heart just BLEEDS for him.