Elliott Hill, a veteran employee at Nike, is returning to the company. But he'll earn over $2 million less than outgoing CEO John Donahoe.

Hill joined Nike after completing his graduate studies at Ohio University in 1988, having persistently pursued a company representative who had spoken in his sports marketing class.

Elliott Hill started at Nike as an intern in 1988 but steadily scaled its ranks, banking on values of grit and hard work ingrained in him as the son of a single mom in a working class Texas neighborhood.