Purdue alumnus Byron Young brings his data analytics skills to Nike

Monday, January 28, 2019

The secret to choosing a rewarding career is finding something you are passionate about. This is exactly what Byron Young, a 2012 Krannert alumnus in management and marketing and a recipient of a Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, has done in professional positions that require him to transform data, consumer insights and analytics into proper marketing techniques.

Young, who came to Purdue through the Dr. Cornell A. Bell Business Opportunity Program (BOP), is currently the manager of City & Territory Analytics at Nike. This role requires him to sift through data, identify critical information, develop hypotheses, and make recommendations to senior leadership, all things he finds rewarding and interesting.

Young believes innovation is critical to further his company's brand and support the growth of his teammates. “I enjoy the ability to identify areas of opportunity and build a cross-functional plan to deliver results for the team,” he says. “I love to brainstorm, find patterns in data and then bring those strategies to life in the retail world.”

Young valued his time in the Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program because he says it gave him the ability to understand business from multiple points of view and showed him the value of collaborative teamwork. He believes that the program challenges students to break away from the status quo and pursue continuous growth for themselves and the organization for which they work.

As a leader, Young has taken the initiative of discovering and implementing new marketing strategies throughout his career. Working for Target after graduation, he was the first to suggest they carry Big & Tall apparel to gain market share.

Using his knowledge of strategic management, Young then went on to create the first inventory planning team at Mad Engine LLC, saving the company millions of dollars in inventory. All of which led Young to Nike, where he has the opportunity to analyze product positioning to best appeal to the needs of the consumers.

Young’s experiences after Purdue are those students dream about. He has become a great example of an “intrapreneur” — an innovative employee who rises in their career not only because of hard work, but also because of their ability to think critically and creatively.

By Kasie Roberson, Marketing and Communications Specialist, Purdue University

An earlier version of this story appeared in the fall 2018 issue of ENTRnews, the newsletter for the Purdue Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program.