Long before Benny and Griselda rose to prominence in the rap world, Diego Bucchieri was known as The Butcher. This is entirely relevant to his brand Cleaver, which is an obvious reference to the nickname. Diego tells the story of how COVID cuts at Nike SB led him to focus full-time on his board company in an interview with Slam City from last week.

Your job for Nike had evolved into a fairly tech role by then?

I worked for Nike SB for nearly nine years. I started in Argentina as a TM and consulting with everything they were doing with skateboarding. We built the whole Nike SB program there from scratch. Then a couple of years after that I got the brand manager job for Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. Then the Jordan brand manager role was added to the SB job. Then there was big re-organisation of the company and they moved me into doing all the media deals for all categories. A cool job opportunity, but not exactly what I was looking for.

I started working for Nike, because I could contribute with skateboarding, and once that was gone, I was ready to move on. That is when we moved back to Spain. A few months later, I began helping Nike SB with small projects like the “Gizmo” video, then I got a role as the Nike SB retail manager, working with the shops across Europe. Then, I did sales for Spain and at the end I was in charge of the marketing and retail activations for 4 of their biggest accounts. But things come to and end, and changes are always refreshing.

And this change has led to you being able to focus on Cleaver full time.

Yes, as soon as that happened, I knew that it was time to put all my energy into my own thing. When it’s yours, you put all of your heart and soul into it. You know that if you fail or succeed it’s because of what you do. I feel like I’m going back to the beginning again, a full circle.

Back to the essence.

Yeah, you get a job and it’s cool, but at the end of the day, if you are not doing what you love, you need to start looking for something else. Skateboarding for me has been my motivation, my driver, my guide. So if I can support my family with what I love the most, that’s enough.

Read the full story here.

Images Via Slam City