Madison Hahn, CBM Relationships Manager, Nike, London

Hey, do you want to introduce yourself?

I’m Madison Hahn, I work at Nike and I manage our Nike London relationships. It’s called CBM marketing and my role is CBM Relationships Manager. CBM stands for Catalyst Brand Management, which is the sector at Nike that identifies the leaders in the communities that sit on the edges of the brand and build long-term relationships to drive the co-creation of products, experiences, and stories that keep Nike at the forefront of culture. 

So, it’s not about the sports side as much as culture?

Nike is obviously known for sports but in the sector of CBM we work on making sure Nike, as a sports brand, is also culturally relevant. It’s also about how we tell stories too.

How does your background in fashion come into that? Before you were at Aries, right?

My role at Aries was Marketing Manager. Working at a smaller company means that you get a lot of experience across the board as there’s far less people and different resources. 

How did you get here? What did you do at school, what was of interest and how did that transition? So, university and then after that. 

I’ve weirdly known I wanted to work in fashion since I was, like, seven. I was in Ohio and I was always obsessed with being on the internet and it was when Tumblr was a thing. In Ohio, where there was like zero fashion culture, there were no opportunities. When we were 16 we had to [job] shadow someone, and my best friend also loved fashion, so instead of doing that we created our own fashion line. She made the clothes and I did the marketing plan for it, like flyers and a video. I knew I wanted to be in the business side, or marketing at least.

What about university?

I chose Columbia [College Chicago] because of the fashion programme there. It wasn’t the best university, I would say, but it got me to Chicago, where I started to get more into styling and working at interesting retail companies and getting more into the PR, more seen, more roles, more experience. I did everything to get ahead. I got my first fashion PR internship when I was 18 in New York. I had no social life and worked 9am to 8pm, like crazy. It scared me but I realised, no, I still want to do this. I did an internship in LA too but it was too chilled for me. 

Is that how you ended up in London?

I studied abroad in Paris for a few months and ended up getting an internship at Sacai. I knew then I wanted to stay in Europe.

Do you think doing internships or studying was more valuable?

Internships. The only reason I went to college is one, because my parents really wanted me to, and two, because I got a scholarship. It also got me out of Ohio, so it was a stepping stone for me, but I don’t know if I necessarily needed it. I think if you have the means or if you get a scholarship, it’s nice and especially if you come from a smaller town, I think it’s worth it. However, if you’re already in a bigger place and you can do without school, I don’t know if I would recommend it. 

So, you went to Europe and you’re like, I want to move here so I’m going to go do a degree. 

I got my master’s degree in fashion business in London at LCF. I didn’t want to do more school but it was the only way to move to London, so I made getting a work visa as my goal. I knew I had to network to do what I wanted to get here. I was kind of scrambling to find someone or something to sponsor me. I met Nikki through a friend of a friend and she was basically like, okay, if you work your ass off for three months, so I worked my ass off for three months, and then she sponsored me. I worked for her from then, doing consulting and PR, and then eventually went to Aries full time.