Sam Browne, CEO @ Let's Do This, interviews the people reshaping how the world shows up to participate. Together they explore what drives growth for the best events. What makes them sell out, how they diversify revenue, and what actually matters when you scale.
Mike Nishi - From 5,000 Runners to 55,000: An 11x Story
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
7 Sept 2026
Paula Radcliffe - Records, Resilience & Getting The World Moving
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
24 Aug 2026
Seb Coe - Road Running Is No Longer an Afterthought, it’s 95% of the Sport
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.
28 Jul 2026
The Adidas shoe that broke the two-hour marathon - Patrick Nava & Marc Makowski, GP of Running and SVP of Innovation @ Adidas
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
6 May 2026
Building the World's Most Popular Marathon - Hugh Brasher, CEO @ London Marathon Events
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.
Reach and audience
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