Human Resources Boss At Adidas Quits As Diversity Continues To Dominate The Retail Agenda

The head of human resources at Adidas, Karen Parkin, has resigned over comments she reportedly made at an Adidas meeting last year.

And this is just another example of global brands having to take action over racial inequality in the wake of the death of George Floyd in May.

Her resignation follows a protest by 83 Adidas staff who had called for an investigation into her handling of racism, diversity and inclusion. Ms Parkin reportedly used the term “noise” at a meeting for employees at the headquarters of Adidas brand Reebok, when referring to the issue of racism.

Ironically, her departure leaves the board of Adidas being comprised exclusively of white males, although the company has said that it is addressing issues of diversity and inclusion.

Ms Parkin had worked for Adidas for 23 years and when news of her departure came yesterday evening she said she was leaving “to unify the organisation”.

Meanwhile, the company has pledged that a minimum of 30% of hires in the U.S. would be filled by people of black and Latino ethnicity and that the ambition was to have 12% of them in leadership positions by 2025.

Racism In Retail

But it would be unfair to single out Adidas for special attention, earlier in June, again in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, Nike
NKE
chief executive, John Donahoe, commenting on the company’s diversity and inclusion efforts, told employees, “Nike needs to be better than society as a whole…..while we have made some progress over the past couple of years, we have a long way to go”.

Adidas and Nike are of course two of the most popular sports and athleisure brands on the planet and as such, their success also means that the behavior of their brands is always going to be under the spotlight. However, this lack of diversity is not limited to the sports brands.

Drapers refers to the, “insidious nature of racism in fashion retail”, citing some of the luxury brands as being particularly guilty of cultural insensitivity and racism.

And sadly, this is nothing new. In a report from June 2015, titled, “Stitched with prejudice: Zara USA’s corporate culture of favoritism”, it alleged that senior executives at Zara regularly used racial slurs and exchanged racist emails.

However, last month, chairman and chief executive of Zara owner, Inditex, Pablo Isla, in an open letter published on the Inditex website, said, “We have always been a company that firmly believes in the equality of all people. This simple statement means that we stand against racism in all forms, no matter where it occurs in the world.

“This will be a long-term journey, and the change will begin at the top. I am personally deeply committed to this process, and I hope you will join me in helping us make a real change at Inditex and in the world around us for years to come”.

This is clearly a journey to be travelled and it can only be hoped that finally, the retail industry is taking action rather than offering platitudes.