In the highly competitive sports apparel sector, Davide Grasso’s expertise stand apart for a number of reasons, particularly because he possesses such wide-ranging experience directing advertising initiatives for all six of Nike’s footwear and apparel divisions. Responsible for a swath of impact-oriented promotions including the corporation’s partnership with basketball superstar LeBron James and the launch of Nike Free, a sleek line of athletic shoes designed to move naturally with the wearer’s foot, Grasso also contributed a great deal to Nike’s 2008 Beijing Olympics sponsorship and the 2010 film and web soccer interactive, “Write the Future.”
Davide Grasso initially came to Nike in 1993 following a productive tenure as an Account Executive at Italian consumer goods manufacturer Armando Testa S.p.A. After one year acting as a basketball, tennis, and t-shirt apparel Product Line Manager, he stepped in as Director of Marketing for Nike Italia, a post he held for the next three years. Subsequently installed as Apparel Marketing Director at the company’s European headquarters, Grasso relocated to Portland in the early 2000s to take over as Brand Marketing Director of the USA Region. Appointed as Vice President of Brand and Category Management for Nike’s Asia Pacific arm in 2004, he rose to become Vice President of Global Football Marketing before assuming his current position.
Aside from the B.A. in Business and Economics he earned at the University of Turin, Davide Grasso holds an M.B.A. from Milan, Italy’s SDA Bocconi University Graduate School of Management, a degree he obtained in 1992.