By Will Wieters
As a product manager at Adidas, Alim Muhammad, (MMark’19), works on one of the brand’s highest-profile collaborations — designing footwear and apparel alongside Pharrell Williams’ team. His path to that dream role wasn’t typical: it began at Vanderbilt, while he was finishing his final season of NCAA football and exploring what might come after sports. Muhammad enrolled in the Vanderbilt Master of Marketing program while navigating a graduate transfer year in football. Vanderbilt provided both the structure and the flexibility he needed to explore a new professional direction and helped launch a career at the intersection of business, creativity, and culture.
Finding a Fit—On and Off the Field
Alim Muhammad: Vanderbilt Master of Marketing Alum
Muhammad began his college career at Holy Cross, earning a degree in economics before setting his sights on a more business-focused graduate program. Vanderbilt, a school he had considered back in high school, emerged as a perfect fit.
“Vanderbilt was a no-brainer,” Muhammad said. “One, it’s a really great academic school. Even outside of just Owen, it carries a lot of weight when you’re talking to people. And coming from Holy Cross, I had more of a liberal arts background, so I knew I wanted to get more of a business education to see what I liked and didn’t like… the football opportunity just made it a lot easier.”
What set Vanderbilt’s Master of Marketing program apart for him was its one-year format paired with MBA-level coursework. “It was a really good way to segue into business for me,” he said. “What stood out to me is the classes we were taking were MBA classes with MBA students or sometimes Master of Finance Students. It stood out to because I was just able to learn from everyone.”
That exposure to classmates from all walks of life and industries made an immediate impact. “It gave me a me a lot more perspective on the things you can do coming outside of Vandy.”
Creativity Meets Strategy
One experience that stood out was a product innovation course where Master of Marketing students were tasked with conceptualizing and pitching a new product. For Muhammad, it was a turning point.
“We had to make our own products and pitch them to our professors but also classmates within the whole school of Owen,” Muhammad said. “It was just cool to go into the innovation studio and create a prototype and then talk through the storytelling behind all of it and be able to express that.”
It led to a realization: marketing could offer the perfect blend of creativity and business. That free-thinking mindset would not come at cost of the finance, sales, and numbers aspect Muhammad had come to appreciate from his economics background. “It was a perfect blend of that creative but also quantitative piece.”
Breaking Into the Industry
After earning his Master of Marketing degree, Muhammad initially joined Bayer. But when the pandemic hit, he found himself reevaluating what he wanted. “I started doing my research during COVID,” he said. “I’ve always been into sports, fashion, culture, music, the arts, and I started thinking about jobs that sit at the intersection of those things.”
That search led him to product management at footwear brands—an industry he had not previously considered. “As an athlete, I never thought about who was making the product. I just knew what I liked and wore it,” he said. “One of the big things I learned at Owen was how you can convey an idea or story to the general public—how to tell those stories and how to bring that to the audience and create something that people want to buy and resonate with.”
He broke into the footwear industry at Foot Locker, gaining experience across roles at Puma and Reebok before joining Adidas. “I think getting into the industry was probably the hardest part,” he said. “It was really cool to finally get into the door at Reebok and connect with people. It makes the transition a lot easier to be able to network and meet really cool people that worked on projects that I’ve been seeing since I was a kid.”
Since joining the brand, one major highlight has been working on the Pharrell-exclusive Adidas Evo Pro 1 running shoe in celebration of the Olympic torch walk—his first product tied to a global cultural event. “We created a special colorway called ‘Earth’—fully white with blue, green, and brown stripes,” he said. “It was the first collab ever on that shoe, and it was a really cool moment for me because sports is something that’s very dear to me, so being able to have my work show up at the Olympics is second to none.”
Staying Grounded in Culture
A major part of Muhammad’s approach to product management is cultural awareness—what is trending, what people are wearing, and how identity plays into design.
“I live in Los Angeles, so walking around LA, I’m always seeing what people are wearing, what they are doing, asking questions like ‘Why are you wearing that? What do you like about it?” he said. “You have to be a participant in the world you’re serving.”
Music also helps him stay in tune with what’s relevant. “It’s how I keep my pulse on what’s happening in the world. If we’re looking at Gen Z, what are they listening to? What are they consuming? What are they watching? Music is a really good pulse indicator for that.”
For Muhammad, blending culture with strategy is second nature. “Even something like changing a color or the font from this to that can totally change how the consumer is going to look at your product and buy it.”
A Foundation That Still Matters
Looking back, Muhammad sees the Vanderbilt Master of Marketing program as foundational—not just in shaping his skill set, but in helping him build confidence in high-level settings.
“Vanderbilt forced you to get comfortable communicating your ideas,” he said. “So now, when I’m talking to a VP or senior director at Adidas, I’ve done this before. It’s not a culture shock. It’s something that I’ve already practiced and built up.”
His advice to future students: lean into your passions and learn from others.
“When I was done playing football, I was like let me try something else.” he said. “I had to be honest with myself. What are the things that I like? What is something I love to do?”
As for learning through your peers, Muhammad said, “Have those conversations. Not just about finding the job but genuinely learning about what a person does and why they do it and why they like it.”
What is next for Muhammad? He has his sights set on product leadership in a sports category—particularly football.
“I grew up flipping through the Eastbay catalog, trying to find a perfect cleat,” he said. “To be able to give that feeling to someone else is what I strive to do.”