Reflets Magazine #149 devotes its cover feature to  Mathieu Sidokpohou (E98), Managing Director Europe of Adidas, who tells us about his career as a ‘pure product of national education in France’. Here is a free online translation of the article… subscribe to get the next issues (in French)!

Reflets Magazine: What path led you to Adidas?

Mathieu Sidokpohou: I am a pure product of France’s national education system, to which I owe everything, as it enabled me to enrol at ESSEC in the mid-1990s. My father came from Benin, my mother was French and I grew up in the east of France. Like many other students, I arrived at ESSEC without a precise idea of what I wanted to do, but during a class on advertising, I had an epiphany. I fell in love with brands, big brands; the ones that have a real impact on people’s daily lives. My career has been structured to a great extent by this. I found work placements at Colgate-Palmolive, where I sold no-scrub detergent, L’Oréal in Sweden and Procter & Gamble in France. I eventually began my career in marketing with Procter & Gamble, where I spent 16 years in all.

RM: Prior to joining Sephora in 2015...

M. Sidokpohou: I’d been living in Singapore for three years already, working for Procter as Marketing Director for hair care Asia, and I thought it might be a good idea to change perspective. At that moment, the opportunity came my way to take on the general management of Sephora for the South-East Asia and Pacific area, which encompassed India, Korea and Australia, but not mainland China. After three years with Sephora, I returned to France and joined the Danone group as Global Vice President for the ‘functional’ brands of the Dairy & Plant Based division, specifically Activia and Actimel.

RM: How did you find a position with Adidas?

M. Sidokpohou: In a very standard way. Four years ago, I got a phone call from Adidas asking if I would be interested in coming to work for them. They offered me the role of Managing Director for the brand in France. I said to myself: ‘At last a job that will allow me to reconcile everything I like doing with a magnificent brand in the world of sport!’. My responsibilities rapidly extended to Southern Europe, before I ended up here in Herzogenaurach, in the middle of the Bavarian countryside, a few months ago, as Managing Director of Adidas Europe, which represents our most important region in terms of turnover and is the historic cradle of the brand.

RM: Was this rapid rise part of an original plan?

M. Sidokpohou: No, it wasn’t planned for, but I think the idea behind Adidas recruiting profiles like mine is to take us further. It’s true that very few of us have entered this amazing company directly in a general management role, without a background in sport. It seems to have worked out well for me, but no, there was no formal plan to start with.

RM: What is your road map?

M. Sidokpohou: My task is both simple and ambitious. Adidas has its roots in Europe, with an extremely solid foothold, through football in particular, but our aim is also to become the world’s greatest sports brand. Our number one task is to provide our athletes with the very best. I insist on that point because we are also a lifestyle brand; a lot of people wear Adidas to do something else besides sport, but our primary profession is to help athletes enhance their performance, whatever their sport may be. My aim for Europe is therefore to make our partner athletes and federations our top priority. This essentially involves product innovation. We innovate to enhance performance. Take the example of the American sprinter Noah Lyles, who became the 100-metre world champion in Budapest last August. He produced his two best performances of the year wearing Adidas spikes. This is symbolic of what we want and must do. Our priority is thus sport above all.

RM: What about lifestyle?

M. Sidokpohou: This is also a key element of our growth, but you have to remember that nothing in lifestyle would exist without sport first. Take the Stan Smith shoe, originally designed in the 1960s for playing tennis. It was initially called the Robert Haillet, after the French tennis player who designed the shoe, before the American Stan Smith appropriated the model in the 1970s. It’s the same thing for the Gazelle or Samba shoes; before becoming iconic fashion items, they were designed for playing handball and football. In short, our raison d’être in lifestyle is simply an extension of our ability to lead the market in sport.

RM: Do you have any other priorities for your road map?

M. Sidokpohou: The third and last priority for my road map is to rally the in-house teams. We are a leading brand in a vast ecosystem, in which distribution is obviously a key element. We work in a sector driven by passion, i.e. sport, and we must use that to rally our in-house teams, in particular through all those major events past or to come, such as the Women’s World Cup football, the World Athletics Championships, the Rugby World Cup, the European Football Championship, which will take place here in Germany next year, and of course the Paris Olympic Games in 2024. We have to foster that passion, this playing ground, to bring our teams together, especially our younger staff who are in search of more meaningfulness.

RM: What are your aims and strategic plan for Paris 2024?

M. Sidokpohou: [Article to be continued in Reflets Magazine #149]

Interview by François de Guillebon, Chief Editor at Reflets Magazine, and Michel Zerr, Reporter for Reflets Magazine
Translation of an excerpt of an article published in Reflets Magazine #149. Read a preview  (in French).  Get the next issues (in French).

Image : © adidas