Disrupting the Game summary

Back when Reggie was at Cornell, a lot of Fortune 500 company executives had one thing in common: they’d all spent time working as brand managers for the consumer goods company Proctor & Gamble, also known as P&G.

The company’s brand managing role functioned as a hands-on training program for future executives, granting them increasing levels of responsibility and teaching them how to handle every major aspect of running a successful company – from advertising to product development.

Reggie ended up spending eight years at P&G. He managed multiple brands, including Crisco (a shortening product) and Sun Drop (a soft drink that competes with products like Mountain Dew). 

Along the way, Reggie learned valuable lessons – from how to write an effective business memo to the importance of gaining support for your initiatives from key decision-makers. He also learned what kind of work he liked doing: driving high rates of growth in fast-paced sectors.

While he was working with P&G’s soft drink brands, Reggie often found himself in close competition with PepsiCo. And, as fate would have it, his next position was with one of PepsiCo’s restaurant brands: Pizza Hut.

Working as a divisional marketing director for the company, Reggie pushed for growth and innovation on several fronts – not just marketing, but also product development. Sometimes, that meant making risky decisions that proved to be mistakes – and one of those mistakes proved to be another learning experience for Reggie.

After working a few years for Pizza Hut, Reggie moved through a series of increasingly senior-level marketing roles at a variety of companies: two years at Panda Management Company, two years at Guinness Import Company, two years at Derby Cycle Corporation, and two years at MTV Network’s VH1 channel.

And, why was he hopping from one company to the next? Well, the short answer is that he was looking for the right fit – a company, a role, and a leadership team that would allow him to pursue bold ideas and drive innovation and growth at the fast pace he favored. But Reggie kept running up against walls.

About a year later, Reggie was getting ready to make Nintendo’s main presentation at the 2004 E3 video game conference – the industry’s biggest event, closely followed by industry insiders, retailers, publications, and fans.

Since his hire, Reggie had been busily building relationships within Nintendo, but to the larger industry, he was still relatively unknown. This would be his introduction to the gaming world – and by the end of the evening, he’d be on his way to fame. As Reggie began his presentation, he introduced himself and his mission at Nintendo with a line that would become legendary: “My name is Reggie. I'm about kicking ass, I'm about taking names, and we're about making games.” The presentation was a hit, Reggie’s aggressive messaging was so well-received, in fact, that fans gave him a new nickname: The Regginator.