A top Nike exec with the company 25 years is out of a job amid a controversy involving her entrepreneurial teenage son. His business: reselling sneakers. Ann Hebert, the company's VP and general manager of North America, resigned Monday after Bloomberg Businessweek came out with a feature about her son, 19-year-old Joe Hebert, reports Fortune. The story explained how Joe, a college dropout nicknamed West Coast Joe, uses a team (and bots) to scoop up new sneakers as soon as they become available online then flips them for a profit. The reporter, Joshua Hunt, says he first discovered the link between Joe and Ann Hebert by accident when Joe called him from a number registered to Ann. Later, Joe showed him a credit card statement for his company, West Coast Streetwear, and the card was in his mother's name.
Joe acknowledged the connection but told Hunt his mother was so high up in the company that she had no effect on his business. He said he received no inside information from her, or discount codes, etc. In his story, however, Hunt points out that Hebert was instrumental in a Nike initiative called Consumer Direct Offense that indirectly boosted the sneaker-resale business. A Nike spokesperson told Hunt that Ann Hebert informed the company of her son's business and had violated no company policy. The company did not refer to the controversy in a statement on Monday thanking Ann Hebert for her service and pointing out that she "made the decision to resign from Nike," per Complex. Nike does not allow its own employees to participate in sneaker reselling, and it's not clear whether Hunt's story changed the view on whether she had done that. (More Nike stories.)
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