Nike
Nike Running Division Leadership Activation Case Study
Where Pace Meets Presence — A One-Day Reset at Portland International Raceway
Client: Nike Running Division
Location: Portland International Raceway, Portland, OR
Vehicles: Ferrari 430s & Lamborghini Gallardos
Duration: One-Day Leadership Retreat
SEO Keywords: Nike leadership development, experiential corporate retreat Portland, motorsport leadership training, transformational leadership activation
The Challenge
Client: Nike Running Division
Location: Portland International Raceway, Portland, OR
Vehicles: Ferrari 430s & Lamborghini Gallardos
Duration: One-Day Leadership Retreat
SEO Keywords: Nike leadership development, experiential corporate retreat Portland, motorsport leadership training, transformational leadership activation
The Experience
Motorsport Lab built a one-day leadership activation where Ferrari 430s and Lamborghini Gallardos became more than hardware — they became leadership instruments.
On the track at Portland International Raceway, we used motorsport environments to surface behaviors Nike cares about:
• Transformational leadership (inspiring performance)
• Collaborative decision-making under pressure
• Adaptive leadership based on context, not autopilot
This directly reflects Nike’s emphasis on innovation, inclusion, and continuous learning as core cultural drivers. They don’t just talk about development — they create the conditions for it.
Why It Worked
Ferraris and Lamborghinis are honest.
They don’t negotiate with unclear direction or fractured communication.
They magnify leadership tendencies instantly:
• Overcorrection = reactionary leadership
• Silent drift = misalignment in motion
• Trust in a navigator = shared pace & presence
This matters to Nike because they utilize a transformational leadership style, where leaders are measured not just on what they deliver — but on how they inspire innovation, empower teams, and build belonging. (Nike’s own words: leadership development is an investment in “personal growth with enterprise impact.”)
The racetrack became a leadership lab: a place to practice presence without performance theater.
Results
This wasn’t a day measured in KPIs.
It was measured in smiles, shared adrenaline, and the kind of conversations that don’t happen behind laptops.
Nike’s Running Division left the track with:
🎉 Real joy — laughter in helmets, high-fives in pit lane, stories that stuck
🚗 New shared memories that didn’t require a meeting link
🔧 Inside jokes born from track exercises, pit crew moments, and the Ferrari vs. Lambo debates
🍎 Humanized leadership — people got to show up as themselves, not their output
🔄 A reset — less tension, more ease, more curiosity about each other
💬 Conversations that moved beyond deliverables and into who people are, not just what they do
Most importantly:
They remembered how good it feels to enjoy each other.
Not as roles.
Not as departments.
As people.
About Motorsport Lab
Motorsport Lab turns motorsports into ROI. From Ferrari factory floors to Aston Martin F1 activations in Monaco — we fuse adrenaline, culture, and business outcomes.
Activation Evidence: Real-World Performance Validation
Sometimes the strongest evidence isn’t data — it’s the energy you can sense just by watching.
None of this was manufactured.
No coaching, no do-overs.
Just a team reconnecting, for real, right in front of you.
Why This Matters for Businesses?
For enterprise organizations, high-growth tech companies, and global consumer brands, the biggest threat to performance isn’t the competition — it’s leadership drift: trust eroding in silence, teams operating in silos, communication thinning until the culture feels it long before the numbers do. Research from Harvard Business Review, Deloitte, and MIT Sloan shows that high-trust leadership isn’t “soft” — it’s infrastructure that drives scale, resilience, and long-term revenue. That’s why we design motorsport-based leadership activations for brands like Nike: not ballrooms or breakouts, but curated environments with Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and shared challenge that reset communication, rebuild connection, and make alignment tangible again. Because trust isn’t rebuilt in theory — it happens in motion, where hierarchy dissolves, clarity returns, and teams remember how to move forward as one.
Why Enterprise Brands Companies Hire Motorsport Lab
Enterprise brands hire us because we don’t run events — we run interventions. Our motorsport activations rebuild alignment, trust, and communication in ways hotel ballrooms never will.