Jack Wolfskin GmbH & Co. KGaA named  Michael Rupp, 51, as its new CEO, effective in July. Rupp has more than 20 years of industry experience and has for the last four years been president and CEO of the Adidas subsidiary The Rockport Company, LLC (“Rockport”) in Boston, USA. Rupp will return to his homeland of Germany, based at Jack Wolfskin's headquarters in Idstein.



“Jack Wolfskin is a unique brand with a great product range, widely seen in Europe as the number one outdoor company and becoming a globally recognised brand,” said Rupp. “I am confident of Jack Wolfskin's continued success and I really look forward to working with the existing management team to drive continual development of the brand in a manner true to the authentic heritage that the team has built over the last 25 years.”


Rupp held various roles at Adidas for more than 10 years, including as managing director in Central Europe (which includes Germany, Austria and Switzerland) before joining Reebok as chief operating officer in 2005. He then became CEO of Rockport, a US shoe brand. With Rockport, he developed a strategic and operational roadmap which led to a successful turn round of the brand.


“We had a clear target profile for the CEO position and Michael Rupp is the ideal person to fit the culture and business goals of Jack Wolfskin,” said xel Herberg, Chairman of Jack Wolfskin. “His deep knowledge of the sporting goods industry and of the German market, combined with his vast international experience with leading global brands will be a huge benefit to the company”.


In the 2011 financial year, Jack Wolfskin was, once again, able to increase its sales significantly by 22.5% to €355 million ($492mm), thus reinforcing its strong market position. Year to date, the company has continued to deliver double digit top line growth, with particularly high growth rates in international markets.”


Rupp joins the existing Jack Wolfskin Management Board, comprising Andreas Klotz as Chief Financial Officer, Christian Brand as Chief Operating Officer and Markus Bötsch as Chief Sales Officer.