Episode 09: Jonathan Johnsongriffin
Jonathan Johnsongriffin - NIKE VP - Global Creative Director | Interviewed by Rashad Floyd
All my life I've always looked to be inspired and to inspire others. That's a privilege for me, that's who I am. I think that's something that I learned early on from my family around me and the community that raised me. I think as a black man I've always been super aware that examples are extremely important. I have to play my part and I have to help us move forward as a community every day. I've always respected where I come from, where I'm at, and I've always been aware of where I wanna go. If I can't express who I am, if I can't stand up for what I believe in, I'm doing a disservice to the community.
My name is Jonathan Johnson Griffin, and this is Expressions in Black.
So when I was a teenager I just always loved to draw. I always loved to create beautiful things. My mother played a really iconic role in my life, she raised me in a community center on the East end of Louisville, Kentucky. And so through that, I was always exposed to sports, art, and purpose. When I look back at my body of work, this didn't just happen, you know, it’s been building for a while. Nobody was talking about purpose work back in the day, and now that's what's fueling the brand. I think purpose storytelling for me, it's about a relationship. It’s a relationship with communities, it's not a transaction. When I got to Nike I began that relationship here in Portland through mentorship, and that turned into a program we started around Black History Month.
Back in 2011, we really wanted to elevate the voice of our black athletes so their stories could be told, and it was a program based upon mentorship for high school students. It was about creating a language that spoke to our younger generations to answer their call to greatness with design. Black History Month then turned into some of the other purpose programs that we now have today! Whether it be the EQUALITY, EQUALITY HAS NO BOUNDARIES, UNTIL WE ALL WIN, and even YOU CAN'T STOP SPORT.
We are sending a message that says; Hey, we are a sport community that’s gonna influence and change the world. It really started a movement with LeBron James, Serena Williams, Kevin Durant, Megan Rapinoe, and all these different impactful athletes standing side by side telling the world that equality should have no boundaries, that we should all have equal playing fields. It’s an absolute privilege for me to be a part of that conversation.
I love being a father! There’s not a suit that I put on when I wake up and go to work that I change when I come home, it's the same suit. At the end of the day this role is what matters, you know, this is the legacy. This is why it's important to be an example. Life for me is about legacy. We can't choose how long we're gonna be on earth, but the time we're here we can choose what we do with it. Working from home has been an amazing time to just be able to be in a space with family, reflect on who I am, where I came from, where I am right now and where I wanna go. You know, literally, this space that I've been working in for over a year now has been my creative playground and it actually feeds who I am.
When you talk about being creative, when you talk about being an example, we should absolutely bring that to work with us.
When I look around and I see stories from my ancestors, artifacts from my mom, seeing these objects of past, present, and future chasers, people that are creating greatness, it just reminds me of why I'm here, you know, it reminds me of my responsibility and the example that I have to continue to put forth. You know, for me, with two young daughters I see infinite possibilities and I see this idea of the future and what it could be. If I took anything from the year 2020, it’s the mindset of doubling down on the inspiration, because inspiration is what is gonna take us to 2021, 2022, and beyond.
Throughout my career, I've been able to tell a lot of stories. The thing about Nike that was really inspiring to me is that Nike was always good at telling amazing stories. And so when I got here, I wanted to be a part of that. One of the things that I did with Lebron is this first championship shoe, the Lebron 10 Cork's. Whether it be designing shoes, starting mentorship programs inside of Nike, working in the community, the journey I've been on has been an amazing one. The first shoe I worked on with Serena Williams, she wore at the
Australian Open. And as those stories started to flow, more storytelling mediums started to flow. And now we've created the Serena Design Group Program bringing more representation and more diversity to Nike design.
For me, truly being able to bring my full self is extremely important because I think that is actually the value that I bring. If I'm doing it in my community and we're not having the same dialogue inside of companies, inside of boardrooms, with athletes, with allies, then we've missed. Being able to work on multiple different names that allow different voices to be heard and stories told, I mean, that's why I'm still here, to be honest. I believe anything is possible because of my mother, because of my wife, because of my daughters, because of Serena Williams, because of LeBron James, because of all the people that came before me, because of the people that are standing next to me, and the people that are gonna come after me. I believe that I can as well as our community can because there are examples. It just shows that we have so many reasons to believe, and it's actually my mission to show other people that they can believe!
