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“There are three kinds of people,” said New Balance Global Brand President and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Chris Davis. “There are people who don’t see an opportunity, there are people who see an opportunity and don’t take it, and there are people who see an opportunity and take it. Be the third person.”
Davis offered this advice on Nov. 10 as a guest of the Emmanuel Business Collaborative (EBC), an ongoing program through the School of Business & Management that invites leaders of insight and impact to campus to share their perspectives. The conversation was moderated by Anne Marie Pasquale, dean of the School of Business & Management.
Davis leads marketing for Boston-based New Balance, the only privately held major athletic brand in the world, and has been named to Forbes’ list of the world’s most influential CMOs four consecutive years, ranking number two in 2025. Speaking to a standing-room-only audience in the Library Lecture Hall, Davis described how a shift in brand strategy helped pave the way for New Balance to nearly triple its revenues from 2020 to 2025.
“We needed to transform New Balance from a great products organization to a world-class athletic brand,” Davis said. “And what that requires is emotion.”
Davis saw that opportunity in 2018 and proposed a new approach that emphasized storytelling, pairing the company’s longstanding reputation for quality with a brand identity built on joy, a challenger mindset and independence.
“If you have Nike and Adidas within your industry, you are inherently a challenger brand,” Davis said.
“We had to create a culture of calculated risk excellence,” he added at another point. “We had to do things differently, and we really had to take risks in order to break through.”
Authenticity was key, and that extended to the athletes who become “part of the New Balance family,” as Davis put it. The company favors quality over quantity, with an emphasis on athletes who share New Balance’s values and want a hand in the brand’s storytelling. He cited a recent three-day visit by MLB superstar Shohei Ohtani, who came to Boston to go over his product and marketing plans with the team, as an example of that dedication.
From a strategic standpoint, Davis outlined New Balance’s 50-30-20 approach to marketing: 50% of the budget goes to proven tactics, 30% to calculated risks and 20% to experiments with a high probability of failure. Ideas that succeed in the experimental tier move up to calculated risk, and those that work two or three times become proven tactics, creating what Davis called “a self-fulfilling prophecy of innovation.”
“The death of all great brands in sports, retail, and fashion lies in the notion of stagnation,” Davis said. “So that basically means if you’re standing still, you’re moving backwards. If you don’t have the ability to disrupt yourself, you ultimately will become disrupted.”
Davis also shared what he looks for in new hires.
“What I particularly look at on a resume is: did this person demonstrate intent?” Davis said. “They say they want to work in sports. They say they want to work in retail. They say they want to work in fashion. What do they do to prove that?”
He cited involvement in athletics and campus organizations as ways to demonstrate intent. He noted that every New Balance executive has worked in retail at some point, which he said shows initiative and an understanding of the building blocks of the business. Hard work and being a good teammate rounded out his list of important traits.
Davis also discussed how he approaches ethical leadership. Davis highlighted the need for honest feedback and clear communication, noting that dishonesty erodes a workplace “like a bunch of different paper cuts.”
“How cultures stay strong, I think, is through integrity, honesty, and objective leadership,” he said.
For students planning their futures, Davis closed with a reminder to stay focused on the present.
“Be the best at what you’re doing right now, and be the best at what’s in front of you,” Davis said. “If you focus on that, then the doors will open up for you. I promise.”
