Nike CEO apologizes for company's "boys-club culture"

SAN FRANCISCO, May 3 (Xinhua) -- World leading sneaker giant Nike's CEO Mark Parker Thursday apologized to employees at an all-staff meeting for a "boys-club culture" at the company that disparages women employees, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Parker called the rare meting at Nike's Beaverton campus in Oregon on the U.S. west coast, a few weeks after six Nike executives and senior managers were forced to leave since March amid reports of misconduct by male employees against women workers.

In March, a group of women at the company complained to Parker that their informal survey revealed a corporate "boys-club culture" was permeating at the company where female employees were given unequal pay and suffered inappropriate sexist behavior from their male colleagues, which failed to be taken seriously by its management.

Parker told his employees that he wanted "everyone to know that I'm personally committed to making Nike a place where everyone can thrive in an environment of respect, empathy, and equal opportunity for all."

The upheaval at the company has forced Nike's head of human resources and other senior executives to leave.

As a remedial gesture of balance, Nike has promoted two women to senior leadership positions in recent days to underpin what Parker called the value of "equal opportunity for all."

Nike's new human resources chief Monique Matheson said in an internal email in April that nearly a third of the sportswear company's vice presidents are women. Enditem