Senior Director of Europe, Derek Morrison, joined the team in 2018. In fact, he holds the honor of being the first team member hired in Europe. Among his many accomplishments are helping to build the European team, scouting StockX’s physical locations in London, and leading the charge of StockX’s exponential European growth. As part of StockX’s five-year anniversary celebration, we caught up with team members, including Derek, to talk about life as a StockX team member.
The following has been slightly edited.
How did you hear about Stock, and why did you want to join the team?
Like many “sneakerheads of a certain age,” I found vindication and validation in Josh Luber’s infamous 2015 TED Talk about the sneaker resell world. I followed Campless as it evolved into StockX. Eventually, I reached out to Josh as I knew there was immense opportunity and demand for the platform in Europe, and I was exhausted with paying $40 shipping for every order. My background as a sneaker lover and economics nerd gave me full confidence that this business could truly revolutionize the way people buy and sell things, and I wanted to be a part of it. After a 24-hour whirlwind trip from London to Detroit and two Detroit Bruce-shaped-car-air-fresheners later, Josh, Greg Schwartz, and Adam Wolf kicked me into gear searching for our first European Authenticators.
What is the most exciting aspect of working at StockX?
Every day we wake up and contribute to building a business that is truly changing the world of commerce. We are democratizing broken systems and industries that have denied buyers, sellers, and brands from reaching their potential for years. We are doing for fashion, sneakers, and commerce what Netflix did to movies, streaming did to music, and Amazon did to publishing. We are just getting started, but this business is on track to change the world. How many people get to say that each morning?
Your most memorable day on the job?
I think it has to be the day we officially launched StockX in Europe. It combined the first real volumes arriving at the authentication center, a massive launch event full of devoted StockX users, a keynote from Josh, and then me scribbling in the green room on a poster with Greg about why we needed to create All-In-Asks for international regions. It was both an exciting milestone of all the work we had done to get things off the ground in London in 2018, but also the start of this great journey we’ve been on ever since!
What’s been the most surprising part of your job at StockX?
I vastly underestimated how many hours I would spend in Google Meetings. Steph Curry shoots threes; Tom Brady wins Superbowls; I mute when I’m not speaking.
How will the secondary market change in the next five years?
I think the lines will continue to fade between the secondary / primary market, more than they already have. Overall, sneakers/current culture is transforming like hip-hop. Peak Yeezy / Off-white hype madness was like 50 Cent on the radio, when hip-hop went from being an underground subculture to being fully mainstream. The hip-hop genre is now a diverse universe full of sub-genres and barrier-breaking composers who have redefined its identity. I expect sneakers as a medium / culture will evolve in a similarly diverse way, and we already see seeds of that with brand releases.
As we go deeper post-hype, people no longer have to worry about how they get the things they want—all those things will be available on StockX, so they can spend more energy reflecting on what they want, and why they want those things. That will hold brands, marketplaces, and designers to a higher standard. Brand success will depend on products and storytelling that achieve deeper resonance with the consumer, likely informed by sustainability, creative innovation, and deeper socially-conscious narratives.
To see more of our five-year anniversary celebration, click here.
