US' Wolverine World Wide announces new brand group & leadership roles

These moves include reorganising the brand group structure into the active, work, and lifestyle groups, to better leverage common product and consumer categories, align with the company’s view of its global portfolio, and provide increased transparency to investors. The company will appoint new leaders of these brand groups, to better position each brand for success. It will establish a profit improvement office to accelerate cost savings and efficiencies that will accelerate operating margin expansion and provide capacity for future investments, WWW said in a media statement.

As of the fourth quarter of Fiscal 2022, Wolverine Worldwide reorganised its portfolio of brands into three reportable segments. The active group consists of Merrell footwear and apparel, Saucony footwear and apparel, Sweaty Betty activewear, and Chaco footwear. The Work group consists of Wolverine footwear and apparel, Cat footwear, Bates uniform footwear, Harley-Davidson footwear and HyTest safety footwear. The Lifestyle group consists of Sperry footwear, Keds footwear, and Hush Puppies footwear and apparel.

The kids footwear results from Saucony, Sperry, Keds, Merrell, Hush Puppies, and Cat will be reported within the applicable brand.

Chris Hufnagel has been appointed as president of the Active Group. The Saucony and Chaco brands will now report into Hufnagel, who will also continue leading the Merrell brand. Hufnagel has held several key leadership roles including global president of Merrell since September 2019, global president of Cat Footwear, and corporate senior vice president and head of strategy. Prior to joining Wolverine Worldwide, Hufnagel held senior leadership roles at Under Armour, Gap, and Abercrombie & Fitch.

Tom Kennedy has been appointed as president of the Work group, and the Wolverine, CAT Footwear, Bates, Harley-Davidson Footwear, and Hytest brands will continue reporting into him. Kennedy has held several key leadership roles, including global president of Sperry and president of apparel and accessories. Prior to joining Wolverine Worldwide, Kennedy held senior leadership positions at Nike, Gap, Fossil, and PacSun.

Katherine Cousins has been appointed as president of the Lifestyle group. The Hush Puppies brand will now report into Cousins, who joined the company as president of Sperry in 2021 and has also overseen Keds since the beginning of 2022. Prior to joining Wolverine Worldwide, Cousins served as VP and general manager of the Kodiak, Terra, and Work Authority brands at VF Corporation, and led global strategy, consumer research, licensing, and accessories for Timberland.

“Our new reporting structure will allow us to focus on the brands and product categories that have the biggest opportunities to maximise future value creation. We will prioritise future investments and resource allocation to the areas that we expect to generate the greatest return. This new segment presentation also provides investors and other stakeholders improved visibility into the underlying performance and results,” Mike Stornant, executive vice president and chief financial officer, said.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (GK)