Boardriders Inc., the parent of Quiksilver, Billabong, Roxy, DC Shoes, RVCA, Element, and VonZipper brands, announced that Arne Arens will be joining the company as its incoming CEO, effective March 1.
Arens will be taking the leadership over from current CEO Dave Tanner, who will remain on the company’s Board of Directors. Tanner and Arens will work closely together to ensure a smooth transition.
Arens spent the past ten years at VF Corp., where he was most recently global brand president of The North Face, having previously held leadership roles for the brand in both Europe and the Americas. Prior to VF, Arens spent eight years at Nike where he held marketing and commercial roles and led the company’s football business in Germany, Austria and Switzerland during a period of rapid growth. Earlier in his career, Arens was a management consultant and professional volleyball player. He is a mentor to starting entrepreneurs in several industries and has also served on the Board of the Conservation Alliance.
Beginning in 2015, and in partnership with Oaktree Capital Management, Tanner led the restructuring and turnaround of Boardriders’ predecessor company Quiksilver, Inc. and the 2018 acquisition of Billabong International, Ltd. Tanner and the Boardriders team then successfully drove $100 million of integration synergies ahead of schedule, established a leverageable global brand platform and drove Boardriders’ growth agenda and e-commerce surge. Most recently, the company secured its financial stability with a successful post-COVID-19 global refinancing.
Arens said, “I am thrilled to be joining Boardriders not only for the opportunity to lead its portfolio of world-class brands in their next phase of growth but also to work with its amazing and talented global team. As a former athlete and avid boardrider myself, I appreciate the passionate communities, culture and lifestyle our brands represent. And as an experienced action sports executive, I know this industry, its people and markets and am certain the best is yet to come for our brands. I want to thank Dave for his years of strong leadership of the company and partnership, Oaktree and our Board of Directors for their trust and confidence going forward, and my fellow Boardriders associates for all their hard work to date and, most importantly, for the amazing future we will create together.”
“I am very excited that we have secured a great talent like Arne to lead us into this next phase of our journey,” said Tanner. “I am enormously proud of what our teams have accomplished through our joint vision, passion, and stamina during my five and a half years with the Company—the most challenging and rewarding of my career to date. Collectively, we have overcome innumerable obstacles to protect our brands and their heritages built an unparalleled global platform for the action sports space, and have extended those capabilities commercially into the global marketplace. As a significant investor and continuing Board member, I look forward to working with Arne to continue building on our success in the years ahead. Boardriders’ future is brighter than ever, and I thank our entire global family for making that possible.”
Matthew Wilson, portfolio manager at Oaktree Capital Management said, “It’s a great day for Boardriders and for our future. We greatly appreciate Dave’s leadership over the years and now have another great new leader in Arne to carry the torch of progress even further. On behalf of all of us at Oaktree and the Board, I want to thank Dave for his incredible efforts and accomplishments with Boardriders and express our excitement in seeing what Arne’s world-class talents will bring for our future.”
Photo courtesy TNF, Arne Arens
