Salewa North America has named Steve Kropf as director of sales, which makes him responsible for driving sales of the company's Dynafit, Salewa, Wild Country, and Pomoca brands and working with retail partners on brand initiatives. The company also announced it had hired Dan Fiore, an expert in outdoor industry trends, as its new product line manager for apparel.
With more than 30 years of combined experience, Steve and Dan will set the company's sales agenda and work closely with the rest of the executive team as Salewa North America capitalizes on the growing trend of backcountry skiing with Dynafit/Pomoca and the vertically oriented mountain lifestyle with Salewa/Wild Country.
“Steve and Dan bring a deep understanding of establishing new products, technologies and outdoor solutions. They are the best team possible in terms of enabling the sales opportunities that lie at the intersection of this exciting time in the outdoor industry,” said Chris Sword, president of Salewa North America. “With the increasing demand for the Salewa product lines across the industry, having a sharp, experienced team will be crucial to ensuring we are prepared to fully support our customers and elevate the emerging demand for Salewa.”
Most recently, Kropf was the president/founder of SK Sports Group, a consulting firm specializing in sales, distribution, and business development strategies. In 2010, he acted as managing director for Pele Sports USA which included sales, marketing, finance, and logistics roles. Leading up to his time with Pele Sports, Steve was embedded in the outdoor industry as the president and co-founder of Indigo Equipment (an innovative backpack brand), a sales representative for Black Diamond Equipment, plus the head of sales for Life-Link (the first North American distributor of Dynafit).
With the position of director of sales, Steve’s experience in all the key areas, plus his passionate perspective for the next-generation of sales efforts, will only bolster the forecasted growth of Salewa North America.
“This is a dynamic time for Salewa North America,” said Kropf. “The market is quickly advancing as consumers are realizing the variety of ways to research and purchase gear. Salewa plans on embracing today's hyper-digital world, while increasing our support of sport specialty with all of our brands.”
Fiore, who was recently promoted from Salewa North America's sales and merchandising manager to apparel product line manager, will continue to call upon his successful career at Bentgate Mountaineering in Golden, CO, where he built a world-class sales team, a successful e-commerce presence, and progressive and well regarded advertising model. Since 2013, Fiore has been working closely with the Dynafit design team in Italy to build a North American collection of summer and winter apparel, which included the Dynafit Beast Jacket that recently won a Backcountry Magazine Editor’s Choice award. Additionally, Fiore will continue to help develop the company's sales team presence, with a focus on forging long-term customer relationships that deliver impactful results.
This newly formed sales team will be working together at this month’s Outdoor Retailer Winter Market Show in Salt Lake City, highlighting the new collections from Dynafit’, Salewa, and POMOCA.
Salewa North America is a subsidiary of Salewa International, based in Bolzano, Italy, a family-owned business with global operations, specializing in premium outdoor consumer products. Boulder-based Salewa North America manages the USA/Canada sales, operations, marketing, distribution, and customer service functions for the Salewa brand, along with Dynafit (based in Munich, Germany), Pomoca (based in Aubonne, Switzerland), and rock climbing brand Wild Country (based in Tideswell, U.K.).
