Yakima Products Inc. named an executive from the appliance industry who has worked extensively with its Taiwanese parent company as its new CEO. Ryan Martin was most recently global director of strategy and business development with Whirlpool Corporation, the world’s largest appliance manufacturer.
Martin spent nearly 12 years at Whirlpool, holding various roles in finance, marketing, procurement and global operations at the company’s global headquarters in Benton Harbor, MI. He worked closely with Yakima’s parent company Kemflo International Co. Ltd. for the past seven years in the areas of product design, development and delivery of product to the market. Martin also completed a two-year assignment in China, growing Whirlpool’s procurement footprint. He holds a BA from Indiana University South Bend and an MBA from the University of Denver.
Martin is the second CEO at Yakima hired since May 2011, when Kemflo Chairman C.S. Lin eliminated the position and began directly supervising Yakima’s management team to oversee the integration of Yakima and Hubco Automotive Ltd, a New Zealand company Yakima acquired in 2010 that makes the Whispbar roof rack system. Yakima named one of those executives, Mark Reis, CEO in July, 2012. Reis resigned the position last month.
Based in Pingtung, Taiwan, Kemflo is a manufacturer of consumer durables, water filtration, and metal and electronic products. It acquired Yakima in 2009.
