Unless you were under a rock last week you know by now that the Germans have established a firmer grip on adidas America, purging more senior management a week ago Friday, most notably Tim Joyce, the brands EVP in Portland.
TJ will be replaced by Joe Fields, who was most recently president of Pentlands Speedo International group. He also served as president of Pentland USA, driving the meteoric growth of the Mitre, Pony, and Ellesse powerhouse brands here in the U.S.
Fields, now Senior Vice President of Sales and Retail for adidas America, will report to Erich Stamminger, the man with the longest title in the industry — adidas- Salomon Executive Board Member responsible for Global Marketing and President and Chief Executive Officer of adidas America.
John Kawaja, Director of Marketing for adidas America, will be moved out of that role into “a new senior management position within the adidas-Salomon Group. adidas saw a “redundancy in marketing leadership” after Stamminger's appointment in the fall.
Just last week, adidas-Salomon chairman Herbert Hainer was quoted predicting a back half turnaround at the North America unit. This, after backlog at the end of Q3 was down 35% for the adidas brand. Now they unveil the plan for the turnaround.
>>> Okay, so were a bit caustic here, but weve never seen anyone turn a U.S. business around from Europe. No apologies for recent management either, but it is going to take a strong team with deep relationships with U.S. retailers and trend-right product to get this brand moving in the right direction again
