Carl Watson is an Affiliated Research Scientist with the Center for Effective Organizations, USC Marshall School of Business, specializing in enterprise strategy, organizational design, culture, and leadership-team effectiveness.
Most recently, Carl was the VP of Transformation, Organizational Strategy, and Culture at Nike, Inc. where he and his team drove enterprise transformation across the Nike, Jordan, and Converse Brands, including the strategic translation, design, and activation of the global operating model for the consumer sport evolution. Under his leadership, they successfully launched a new enterprise-wide focus on high-performance teaming and multi-year work to re-energize Nike’s company culture.
Carl led Microsoft’s Organizational Development & Culture Activation team. He was the organizational architect of the strategic shifts for the Entertainment + Devices business and, later, the Windows + Devices Group, shifting these businesses from an operating system on PC hardware to a service powering experiences across devices. He and his team were accountable for major enterprise-wide culture initiatives and evolving the enterprise operating model, during a critical juncture in the company’s industry-defining culture transformation. Carl’s earlier career experience includes being a Human Factors Engineer at an Aerospace Engineering firm.
His research examines strategic renewal and how organizations build the capabilities to adapt in turbulent environments. Carl holds a Ph.D. in Management from Case Western Reserve University; an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.A. in Organizational Psychology from the University of Michigan.
