Puma recruits former Adidas Sourcing Director

By

Bruno Joly

Published
Jan 11, 2013

The official statement from Herzogenaurach - where both Puma and Adidas have their headquarters - is “no comment” but the Puma spokesperson is not denying the news that Andy Koehler has made the move from Adidas to Puma. He is to replace Klaus Bauer as COO.

Following several end-of-year departures at the company, including CEO Franz Koch, the PPR-owned group is preparing for the arrival of the new CEO in the second quarter of 2013. In theory, it will up to him to appoint the fourth member of the executive board. The board of directors currently has just two members, Michael Lämmermann (CFO) and Stefano Caroti (CCO).

Andy Koehler - who arrived at Adidas in 2009 from the automobile industry – is to take over sourcing at Puma as Chief Operating Officer and will focus primarily on the performance sector of the brand. “Since 2010 we have shown a desire to rebalance the activity between our lifestyle and performance poles. In the next five years we are hoping to see performance account 35% to 40% of our total activity,” says Ulf Santjer, Puma spokesperson. To support this project, the sporting brand is preparing the launch of its “Nature of Performance” campaign in New York and Japan this February. On the subject of its previous campaign -aimed at the “night athlete” - Puma says, “our products are highly technical but the message did not seem to translate as so.”