Ann Hebert, a Nike employee of 25 years who served as the VP overseeing all of the sneaker companies North America business left the company on Monday, according to an internal email obtained by MTO News.
“Ann Hebert, VP/GM, North America geography has decided to step down from Nike, effectively immediately,” the email reads. “We thank Ann for her more than 25 years with Nike and wish her well.”
The news comes after Hebert’s 19-year-old son was featured in a @BW article about his lucrative reselling business. 😬
— Nice Kicks (@nicekicks) March 1, 2021
Nike also put out a press release this afternoon publicly announcing the end of her tenure and confirmed the move in a statement to MTO News.
“Ann Hebert made the decision to resign from Nike,” the brand said.
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Hebert’s leaving Nike comes days after the publication of a Bloomberg piece focused on her son, a 19-year-old sneaker reseller named Joe. The piece mentions a credit card Joe used for his reselling business, West Coast Streetwear, that was registered in Ann’s name. Prior to the publication of the piece, Joe asked that his personal connection Nike not be mentioned in the story and cut off communication with the author after it was brought up, but apparently that part was not heeded.
Nike does not permit its employees to participate in sneaker reselling, and the practice of buying shoes at their retail price only to sell them at a higher price is still taboo to many collectors. A Nike spokesperson told Bloomberg that Ann had disclosed information about the business to her employer in 2018 and there was “no violation of company policy.”
The Bloomberg story sparked outrage online, where commenters questioned whether the younger Hebert was gaining unfair access to limited-edition sneakers with the help of his mother. Some brought up the six pairs of rare Nike Mags, which sell for over $12,000 each, that he said he’d randomly discovered in a storage unit in January 2020, speculating they were obtained through more nefarious means. One source claims that Joe would buy pairs in large quantities from Nike outlets using his mother’s discount and resell them later.
