The Salewa Group has hired Christopher Sword to manage its recently established North American subsidiary and its three leading brands: Salewa, Dynafit and silvretta. Tim Kelley, who comes from the former Dynafit distributor Life-Link, will take the position of Sales Director. Europes leading all-around mountain sports supplier is now on course to achieve the next objective in its strategy to best serve the North American markets.
Christopher Sword has been elected Managing Director and President of the recently established North
American subsidiary of SALEWA. The former Director of Marketing, Product Development, and Corporate
Development for Russell Corporations Outdoor Group brings together his passions for outdoor
sports and building businesses. The lifelong outdoorsman, who brings degrees from Villanova and Duke
Universities, has long enjoyed many pursuits, including skiing, snowboarding and mountain biking.
The fi rst step for Sword and his team will be to market and service the complete Dynafi t and silvretta
product range.
Sword is excited about the business prospects: “Very simply, I've never been more excited about a business and my role in it. Our brands are poised for incredible growth from new,
innovative, and industry-leading products. Its my job to build a world-class North American operation around those great products, and provide our extremely demanding customers and consumers the service they expect and deserve.”
Sword will be joined by Tim Kelley as Sales Director. Kelley brings tremendous experience to the team,
with a degree from Colorado State University and most recently as National Sales Manager for Life-
Link, where he was an integral part of the success of the Dynafi t brand since 2001. Kelley built his extensive
experience from the ground up, including retail sales for Patagonia, pioneering online outdoor
gear sales as a buyer for MountainZone.com, and in the fi eld as a Senior Guide for Alaska Discovery in
Glacier Bay National Park and on skis for Vail Resorts.
Kelleys life-long passion is in mountaineering and the gear associated with it. As the key Dynafit representative
in the U.S. for over five years, there is no better sales professional to define the brand and
spread the ski mountaineering message.
Kelley adds, “I have tremendous respect and admiration for
Life-Link, and I am pleased that the transition is a smooth one. The SALEWA North American opportunity
is a chance to play a key role in building a business around these brands. I am looking forward
to taking it to the next level as we strive to earn our place among backcountry skiings most respected
brands”.
SALEWAs sales representatives will include the following key team members: Al Safrada with Sportech
Marketing for Canada; Brian Wilson and Dave Cockburn with Mountain Mecca for Washington, Oregon,
Idaho, Montana, and Alaska; Jason Telford for California and Nevada; and Kyle Burgess with
OutdoorIn Sales for Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico.
