Chris Langstaff

A strategist and builder with an MBA. For a decade at Nike I led data, analytics, AI, and product across Portland and Europe, and before that I built analytical software for the U.S. defense and intelligence community. Calafai is where those trades meet.

My work sits where business strategy, technology, and design meet, in that order. I frame the problem, build the analysis, write the code, and make the business case. Design is how the work gets made clear and usable; strategy is what it is for. Most organizations need three people for that.

I run two modes, and most people only meet one of them. The first is associative: it gets pulled toward whatever is unfamiliar, and it connects things other people keep in separate rooms. The second is literal: it wants the deadline, the shipped thing, the correct answer. Bowerman came from the first mode noticing a broken process. Nike running on it for eight years came from the second mode building something that actually worked. I have not stopped adding new fields to what I know, and I do not sit on what I learn before I put it to work.

The standard underneath it is one I did not invent: Steve Prefontaine's line that to give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift. I hold myself to it, and I am inspired to work with people who bring that same creative focus and pride to their craft.