PIONEERS

Pioneers goes behind the curtain of the greatest experiences in sport, speaking to the people who contribute to and build the key moments we all remember. In this episode, Sam Browne sits down with Mike Nishi, COO and President of Chicago Event Management and General Manager of the Bank of America Chicago Marathon, to talk through more than 35 years in the sport from accidentally running his first Chicago Marathon at 14, to leading the race through its toughest crisis in 2007, to building the partnerships, technology and community programmes behind one of the world's biggest marathons today.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

00:53 A 14-year-old runs his first Chicago Marathon by accident

03:54 Meeting Carey Dukowski and joining Chicago Event Management

06:21 Why they share their playbook with competitors

11:57 Inside the Race Management Program

18:53 The secret behind a 35-year business partnership

25:38 Leading through crisis: the 2007 cancellation

30:59 Inside the forward command facility

34:42 Advice for organisers without decades of experience

36:35 Founding the World Marathon Majors

41:23 The three pillars: participants, workforce, spectators

44:03 Responsible growth, and the flour-and-salt metaphor

44:45 Building trust with the City of Chicago

47:24 How Bank of America became the title sponsor

52:05 What legacy actually means to him

54:25 The 29 neighbourhoods that define the course

55:41 Watching a world record unfold live from command

59:48 Why running got cool again

1:06:21 Designing the ultimate Chicago welcome experience

1:08:22 Innovating fast without losing trust

1:12:03 $47 million raised for charity

1:13:57 Building a year-round race series

1:19:00 Keeping the sport accessible as costs rise

1:20:30 Entries for Equity

1:29:29 Reimagining the start line experience

1:32:36 Borrowing ideas from the NFL, F1 and Lollapalooza

1:35:36 Chasing the two-hour marathon barrier

1:40:25 Advice for first-time Chicago marathoners

1:43:00 The Mike Nishi fingerprint on the sport

1:46:02 The best business advice he's ever been given

1:47:16 Looking ahead to the marathon's 50th anniversary

What you'll learn:

• How Mike went from a 14-year-old who accidentally ran the whole Chicago Marathon to running the organisation behind it

• Why Chicago Event Management shares its playbook with race directors it competes with, and what the Race Management Program actually does

• What really happened behind the scenes when they cancelled the Chicago Marathon in 2007, and how that decision was made

• How the World Marathon Majors partnership came together, and what "responsible growth" means for a race scaling past 55,000 finishers

• How the Bank of America partnership came about — and why it wasn't CEM's doing

• What legacy means to Mike after 35+ years, and how the marathon's 29 neighbourhoods shape the whole experience

• Why running became culturally "cool" again after COVID, and what's driving the current participation boom

• How CEM is trying to keep the sport accessible as costs rise, including its Entries for Equity programme

• What it actually takes operationally to help set up the conditions for a world record

• Mike's advice for first-time Chicago marathoners, and the best business advice he's ever been given

  
  

  
  

This episode with Paula Radcliffe is one of the most personal in the series yet: a guest who set a marathon world record that has now stood for 23 years, rebuilt herself through injury and surgery to keep running for pleasure, and has spent the last decade as one of Let's Do This's earliest investors, advisors and friends. Following on from episode 1 with Hugh Brasher, CEO of London Marathon Events, episode 2 with Patrick Nava and Marc Makowski, VP of Innovation and GM of Running at adidas, and episode 3 with Lord Sebastian Coe. Don't forget to catch these episodes if you missed them.

What you'll learn:

• What it actually felt like to run the final mile of the 2003 London Marathon knowing she was about to set a world record that's now stood for 23 years

• Why she got knocked off her bike three weeks before that race and turned up on the start line ready anyway

• Why she says she's ‘living on borrowed time’ with her own record, and why no elite athlete genuinely wants to see their record broken

• How training around the female menstrual cycle actually worked in her marathon prep including the world record she set the same day she got her period

• Her single biggest piece of life advice, borrowed from a James Patterson novel: the five balls we all juggle in life, and which one is allowed to break

• Why she calls herself ‘a beneficiary of the technology’ that's let her keep running years after her competitive career ended

• Her unfiltered verdict on the London Marathon's critics, and why she thinks mass participation events are an unambiguous good

This episode with Lord Sebastian Coe is the series' fullest picture yet: a guest who has been the elite athlete, the Games organiser, and now the governor of the entire sport, all in one. Following on from episode 1 with Hugh Brasher, CEO of London Marathon Events and episode 2 with Patrick Nava and Marc Makowski, VP of Innovation and GM of Running. Don’t forget to catch these episodes if you missed them.

Sharing the journey that Patrick and Adidas have been on with the highs and the lows. Capturing the magic along the way and exploring what it takes to build products and experiences that change lives. They challenge the industry and encourage event organisers to think bigger about what they create.

What you’ll learn

• How Adidas built the confidence, over more than a year, to work with Sabastian to get him ready for his sub-2 attempt

• The shoe gets the headline. Adidas's SVP of Innovation and GM of Running reveal what actually sits behind it: the years of testing, team culture and iteration it takes to build something that can change an athlete's life and break records

• The thought process Adidas uses to decide which races and partners are worth backing

• How Adidas rebuilt itself after losing ground to challenger running brands

• Why Marc Mackowski wants to eliminate the word culture from the running conversation
  

What does it take to build the most popular race on the planet?

In this episode, Hugh Brasher (CEO of London Marathon Events) sits down with Sam Browne (CEO of Let's Do This) to break down the real playbook behind scaling a global event.

• From 1.3 million applicants to the London Marathon…

• to launching during race weekend…

• to innovating through Covid, AI, and global expansion…

This isn’t theory. It’s what actually works.

🧠 What you’ll learn:

• Why “oversubscribed” is not the goal (but happens anyway)

• The 3-phase growth model: scarcity → revenue → scale

• How to build a team that outperforms you

• Why curiosity is the most underrated leadership skill

• How to innovate in an industry that only iterates once a year

• The real reason community is beating technology right now

• How to turn failure into competitive advantage (the Blackwall Tunnel story)

🎯 Key idea:

You don’t grow by chasing outcomes.

You grow by obsessing over the experience.

Get that right → everything else compounds.

🚀 About the series

This is part of a new series from Let's Do This, unpacking how the world’s best events actually grow.

If you’re building:

• an event

• a brand

• or a category

This is for you.