Business news :Brooks Sports Shifts Organizational Structure

Brooks Sports, Inc. announced it will realign its organization, creating global functions while managing its business divisions by geography. Effective Feb. 1, Brooks Sports will officially change its structure to support four key global functions: product, marketing, operations and corporate. Outside of these functional groups there will be four business divisions, allowing the company to best meet the needs of its customers globally. These divisions include North America, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa), International Business Development and Global eCommerce.

Brooks will also realign its executive leadership team to support this new structure and place focused energy around key areas of the business.
 

• Strategy & Culture:  As CEO, Weber will focus on the long-term strategy for Brooks Sports, Inc., which includes Brooks Running Company and Moving Comfort.  He will be charged with scaling the company’s corporate culture for future success. Weber, who reports directly to Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chairman & CEO Warren Buffett, will lead the Brooks corporate, product and marketing global functions as well as the Moving Comfort division. To round out the corporate function under Weber, Brooks will add the role of chief financial officer to the executive team. The CFO will provide global support to the business divisions, lead Corporate Development efforts and oversee the Legal and IT functions. 
• Global Sales & Operations:  Critical to successfully growing a global $1 billion business are sales and operations. Current Brooks COO David Bohan will take ownership of these two elements of the business as President & COO, Brooks Sports, Inc. In this new role, Bohan will oversee the global Operations function as well as the three regional business divisions and the Global eCommerce division. 
• Brand & Product:  Brooks product and brand are intrinsically intertwined and will be organizationally moving forward. Current Brooks SVP of Marketing Dave Larson will take on an expanded role as Brooks SVP product and marketing. In this new role, Larson will lead both the global Product and Marketing functions, uniting industry-leading product creation with category-defining, Run Happy storytelling.
• North America Division:  In 2014, Brooks will create a subsidiary in Canada allowing for greater alignment across North America. To lead this business, Dan Sheridan recently assumed the role of General Manager, North America. As head of the new North America division, Sheridan oversees national and Specialty Running sales for both the U.S. and Canada. As part of the corporate realignment, regional customer service, retail and events marketing, and retail merchandising will report directly to him.

The changes come on the heels of a successful 2012 during which Brooks drove a 43-percent footwear revenue increase in the U.S and a 41-percent revenue increase on a local currency basis across its European markets.

“Our opportunity to build a great brand and a great business in the running space has never been clearer,” said Jim Weber, Brooks Sports, Inc. CEO. “To lead in performance running, we need to scale our business and culture for continued success. We believe these changes lay the foundation for us to focus on key areas of our business and empower us to exceed the expectations of our partners, employees and the industry, today and in the future.”

( SportsOneSource Media )