Report: Nike Hires Former Amazon Fashion Chief as New Technology Head

Amazon‘s head fashion executive Muge Erdirik Dogan has left her role at the e-commerce giant to become the chief technology officer at Nike, according to a report in Bloomberg.

Erdirik Dogan served as the VP of fashion and fitness at Amazon since February of 2021, according to her LinkedIn account. Amazon confirmed in a statement that she departed to “pursue an external opportunity” and would be replaced by Jenny Freshwater, who most recently served as Amazon’s VP of traffic and marketing technology.

Nike CEO John Donahoe announced Erdirik Dogan’s hire in a letter sent to Nike employees, which was viewed by Bloomberg. “With Muge’s deep understanding of how technology can accelerate innovation, scale processes, increase efficiency, and ultimately drive growth, I’m confident her experience and leadership will help us capitalize on the opportunity ahead while keeping the athlete and consumer at the center,” Donahoe reportedly said in the email.

In February, Nike’s global chief digital information officer Ratnakar Lavu — then the company’s top technology official — left the company.

Nike and Erdirik Dogan did not immediately return FN’s request for comment.

Before joining Nike, Erdirik Dogan had been at Amazon for 16 years and since 2021 had overseen its extensive fashion business, which includes apparel, shoes, sports, outdoors, exercise equipment, luxury fashion and jewelry as well as the Shopbop and Zappos subsidiaries.

She brought an interesting pedigree to the fashion industry having received a PhD from Carnegie Mellon in optimizing supply chains in chemical plants. At Amazon, Erdirik Dogan has successfully courted big fashion brands, including Coach, which has crowed over the technology, presentation and audience offered on the site and includes a “View in 3D” feature.

Erdirik Dogan brings a mindset from Amazon that has helped that company dominate in e-commerce.
“We have brand managers, we have engineers, we have scientists,” she told WWD last month. “And so the way we think at Amazon in general, not just Amazon Fashion, is we always start with the customer and work backwards… adding more and more brands is really the right thing to do for our customers.”

This approach helped Amazon build a $67 billion apparel and footwear business in the U.S., including third-party sales on its marketplace, according to Wells Fargo estimates.