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Mark King      

Chairman of the Board at BIG3 Basketball; Former CEO of Taco Bell, President of Adidas North America & CEO of TaylorMade

As CEO of Taco Bell Corp., Mark King was responsible for driving the business's overall brand strategy and performance in the U.S. and internationally. Drawing on his retail experience and track record of driving innovation, brand relevance, and culture, King accelerated the innovation, sales growth, and unique brand identity that makes Taco Bell a Category of One. In 2023, King announced his retirement from Taco Bell, and in 2024, joined Ice Cube and Jeff Kwatinetz's global BIG3 3-on-3 basketball league as Chairman of the Board. He also serves as CEO of Xponential Fitness.

Before joining Taco Bell, King served as president of adidas North America from 2014-2018. Under his leadership, adidas' market share doubled in under three years, and sales tripled in four years. In addition, King cultivated new energy for the company’s culture, resulting in the double number of employees at adidas, an industry-shattering retention rate, the highest employee net promoter score in the company, and more than 500,000 job applications in one year.

Prior to adidas, King spent 34 years at TaylorMade, quickly rising from a territory sales representative to president of TaylorMade in 1999 and CEO in 2002. During King’s tenure as president and CEO, TaylorMade became the leading and most profitable golf company in the world, catapulting the business from $300 to more than $1.85 billion in sales.

Learned from his nearly 40-year career, King believes in creating the right atmosphere to unleash the potential of people to make extraordinary breakthroughs happen. As a leader, King steers with a belief system based on keeping a growth mindset, investing in people, and encouraging an innovative culture to achieve success.

In 2017, Footwear News honored King with the number one spot on their Power 100 list, and in 2016, they named him “Person of the Year.” Also, in 2017 and 2016, King was named “Executive of the Year” by the Portland Business Journal. He served as the chairman of the National Golf Foundation and was consistently named as one of the ten most powerful people in golf during his years at TaylorMade-Adidas Golf.

King currently serves on the Board of Directors for the V Foundation Victory Over Cancer. Together with his daughters, he has also raised more than $10 million for children's charities around the world through their OneKind Foundation.

King graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.

Speech Topics

Sales Force Motivation

If Mark King is anything he is a dyed-in-the-wool sales professional. Along with his family and his devotion to the sport of golf it is the other true passion in his life. Sales was the path that led him to where he is today. From being a cold-calling sales rep, to a regional manager, to running a global sales effort, Mark King know what it takes to sell and how to motivate others to sell. In golf equipment circles he was simply known as “The Monster” for his ability to move product in staggering numbers. As a sales leader he shared his methods with his sales forces and watched them do the same. Mark’s ideas, techniques and theories on selling are universal and apply to any company that sells a product or service.

Key Ideas:

· The Six Guiding Principles of Selling. · The mindset of a winning sales person. · Reaching your full potential as a sales professional.

Market Conditions Don’t Determine Growth… You Do!

In any flat market there are companies that shrink and those who grow. As everyone knows during such times there is only one way to grow: Take market share from your competitors. This is precisely what TaylorMade did under Mark King’s leadership. From 2000 to present day, golf has been a no-growth market. During that time TaylorMade quadrupled its size from 300 million to 1.2 billion dollars and continues to show solid growth. One of Mark’s core beliefs centers around the concept of growth as a cultural mindset that must be infused into the bloodstream of the organization at every level. It is the leader’s responsibility to establish this and be a tireless promoter of it.

Key Ideas:

· Vision and strategy are meaningless without a fully engaged staff. · Set goals and challenge people to drive the “How.” The results will astound you. · Create an environment where people have a sense of belonging. · Creating energy and changing minds ultimately drives sustainable results. · Change the rules of the game.

Lessons In Leadership

Many people in business today are thrown into leadership positions with very little training. Although Mark was highly successful at running sales forces, once he assumed the role of President & CEO he quickly realized his experience as a sales leader didn’t fully prepare him for the daily battles of leading a global company in a tough market. Mark shares with his audiences how a deeply passionate salesman used the skills he mastered as a sales professional and how he acquired the other skills needed to successfully re-energize TaylorMade, turn it around, and grow it into a market leader.

Key Ideas:

· Understanding the effect your leadership can have. · Pick something you can win at. · Set outrageous goals. · Changing energy changes minds. Changing minds changes behavior. Changing behavior changes results! · Distribute leadership and instill the belief that everyone can make a difference.

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