Boardriders transforms leadership structure to support new multi-year growth plan

By

Robin Driver

Published
Sep 23, 2019

Adventure sports lifestyle company Boardriders, Inc. announced on Thursday that it has created six new leadership roles, revealing a multi-year growth agenda focused around seven priorities, including digital development and sustainability.

 
The Huntington Beach, California-based company revealed that due to the progress it has made in integrating the Billabong boardsports business, acquired by the group at the beginning of 2018, it is launching a series of new strategic initiatives.
 
Aside from sustainability and digital transformation, Boardriders’ new growth plan also focuses on consolidating its position in women’s products, expanding into new categories, exploring new partnerships, kick starting product development, and changing its go-to-market models.

Further to this, the company is launching a new centralized sustainability platform which aims to better align its corporate and brand sustainability initiatives.
 
“The long-term strategy for Boardriders has always been to build a solid foundation by integrating the Billabong acquisition onto a common back-end platform, to continually improve our operations through more disciplined business practices, and to achieve significant synergies that could then be invested back into the brands,” explained Boardriders CEO David Tanner in a release.
 
To support its strategic shift, the company has appointed Billabong global brand president Shannan North to the newly created role of president for commercial strategy and growth. In his new position, North will lead the company’s global retail strategy and define cross-brand commercial strategies. He will also oversee Billabong men’s and women’s, as well as the Quiksilver, Roxy, and Xcel brands.
 
Boardriders also created new global general manager roles for Billabong men’s and women’s, which will be filled by Mark Weber and Katie Singer, respectively, both of whom have been promoted from within the organization.

Dan Levine will take on the new role of global general manager, street, a position in which he will be tasked with synchronizing the company’s skate and streetwear strategies. Levine will also maintain his current leadership role at DC Shoes, while assuming responsibility for the global strategy of Element, a role in which he succeeds David Brooks.

Brooks, in turn, will be transitioning to the newly created role of global general manager for partnerships and distribution.
 
Finally, in order to coordinate the initiatives involved in its new sustainability push, Boardriders has created the new role of global head of sustainability, promoting Cathey Curtis to the position. Curtis will also assume the role of general manager of RVCA women’s.
 
Amidst the executive reshuffle, Kevin Meehan has also ducked out of his leadership role at RVCA, and will be replaced by Brad Blankinship, who returns to the brand as its global general manager.
 
As part of their leadership responsibilities, global president and president of EMEA and APAC, Greg Healy, along with president for the Americas, Nate Smith, will oversee the execution of all of the aforementioned initiatives and transitions.
 
A new revenue management office has also been set up at the company in order to coordinate Boardriders’ new growth initiatives.
 
“Boardriders is fortunate to have assembled such a dynamic and strong leadership team to assume the responsibilities of this next phase in the company's evolution,” concluded Tanner. “With the continued support of our owners and our dedicated teams around the world, Boardriders is well positioned to expand upon its leadership position in the global action sports and lifestyle industry.”