Randy Burns, VP of marketing/team business, has decided to leave his position with Mission-Itech to pursue other opportunities. Randys strategic-thinking skills, and vast hockey experience enabled him to have a huge impact on the Itech business, and was certainly one of the original “architects” on how to merge the Mission and Itech Brands/businesses. Following Burns' departure, the company reported that Holmes Ghassemi, will be joining Mission-Itech as director of marketing, and will be reporting to Steve Goodhand, COO.
Holmes has a long background in the hockey business that started back in the early 90s in his role as the hockey buyer and manager for a New York retailer, named Blades Board and Skate. From there, Holmes became a Pro rep for Nike Hockey, and was later hired by Easton Sports, Inc. where his career grew, during a six-year tenure, to become their director of hockey marketing. During his time at Easton, they brought the Synergy and Stealth sticks to market, and experienced over 350% sales growth in the category. Holmes left Easton for Warrior Sports, as their director of marketing in 2005, where he implemented Warriors unique Brand positioning in the marketplace.
Holmes currently resides in Los Angeles, but will be moving to Montreal for this position with Mission-Itech Hockey. In his role, at Mission-Itech, Holmes will be responsible for all Marketing aspects of the business, and also lead the Pro/Team services department. As such, Holmes direct reports will include our Pro Sales Force (Brett Abel, John Kirk, Scott Donaldson, Scott McKay and Jason Berrett), inside Pro Service department (Lee Britt, Jason Bradley and Mark Rubino), and John Balash and Eric Marquis in the marketing department.
Importantly, by moving the Marketing function under Steve Goodhand, Mission-Itech hopes to have Product, Pro and Marketing work more closely than ever before on product positioning, product qualification, and marketing support/plans.
