2023 has been an extremely turbulent year for the management of many sports shoe and clothing companies.
According to Challenger, Gray& According to a report by Christmas, as of the end of November, more than 20 retail brand CEOs have resigned this year, while a large number of sports shoe and clothing companies have restructured their executive teams.
The centralized "blood transfusion" of the sports company occurred in the March annual reporting season.
In March of this year, while Adidas released its brand's 2022 financial report, Brian Grevy, a senior executive responsible for Adidas brand promotion, announced his resignation on March 30th, and his business responsibilities will be taken over by the new CEO Bjrn Gulden.
Along with Brian Grevy, Roland Auschel, a veteran executive who has worked at Adidas for over 30 years, also resigned.
On the other hand, Adidas, which had seen off two executives, announced a three-year contract extension with Chief Financial Officer Harm Ohlmeyer.
The management of Puma, a sports brand also from Germany, has undergone changes since the release of its annual report: Puma's sports style department's Managing Director has been replaced by Lionel Telega, who had previously worked for Puma for 19 years.
It is worth noting that sports style is the department with the largest proportion of Puma's business. A few days before replacing the executives in the sports style department, Puma had just announced the resumption of cooperation with the diva Rihanna.
Nike also released its latest quarterly financial report in late March. In early March, Nike's personnel changes had already taken the lead: the company announced in a statement that Amy Montagne, Vice President and General Manager of APLA (Latin America), would be transferred to Vice President and General Manager of Women's Business, and her position would be taken over by Cathy Sparks, Head of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
Nike stated that the purpose of this management adjustment is to further consolidate the group's advantages and accelerate the development of its women's business to promote sustainable performance growth.
In fact, when a brand's financial report is released, it is often a period of strategic adjustment for the brand, so personnel changes related to it will also follow.
In addition, due to insufficient supply chain and overall weak demand in the sports retail market, brands are generally facing pressure from inventory and production cuts, resulting in weak growth. The management changes of major brands have become more frequent compared to previous years.
Some companies not only have frequent executive turnover, but also have carried out multiple layoffs.
Taking Weifu Group as an example. In August 2022, Weifu announced that the group would cut 600 positions. This round of layoffs accounted for 2% of Weifu's global employees at that time. In December of this year, news spread that Weifu Group would lay off 500 employees.
In the past two years, the leaders of the four major brands under the group (Vans, Dickes, The North Face, Timberland) have all undergone changes.
Weifu Group announced in March and June last year that Kevin Bailey and Nicole Otto were appointed as Global Brand Presidents for Vans and North respectively.
In April this year, Todd Dalhausser, former brand president of Altra, a running shoe brand under Weifu, changed his identity to become the global brand president of Dickies; In mid December, Weifu Group appointed Nina Flood as the Global Brand President of Timberland.
It is not difficult to see from the resumes of new CEOs of various brands that sports brands are increasingly concerned about the growth of digital business, the development of omnichannel strategies, and the innovation and development of products.
For example, Nicole Otto from the north has served as the Vice President of Nike's North American Digital Division, mainly responsible for DTC business and brand digital transformation in the company.
At the end of last year, Under Armour selected new coach Stephanie Linnartz, who came from a hotel industry completely different from sports shoes and clothing. However, he was still chosen due to his outstanding achievements in digitalization in the past. Thanks to Stephanie Linnartz's promotion of online business, the number of Marriott hotel staff loyalty programs increased to 170 million at one point.