Larry Remington Exits K-Swiss, Barney Waters Takes Top Role At Brand
Larry Remington, the president and CEO of K-Swiss Global Brands, has retired, effective immediately. The company said it wouldn’t fill the position. Instead, it will engage in a corporate restructuring that results in a brand president for each of the six labels under the K-Swiss Global Brands umbrella.
The first move within the company ranks is with Barney Waters, who will transition from his role as the chief marketing officer for K-Swiss Global Brands to the new president of the K-Swiss brand. Waters will assume the new position effective immediately.
In a phone interview with Footwear News, Waters said the start of the restructuring began with the acquisition of skate brands Supra and KR3W in June of last year, and Remington’s retirement was a catalyst for the organizational shift.
“When we acquired Supra and KR3W, we hired a brand president in Robert Capener. We started to have this transitional model where we had some cross-functional people and we had a brand president at one of the brands,” he said. “It was inevitable that we moved eventually for each brand to have a head, it was just a question of when. I think Larry’s retirement gave us an opportunity to make the move now.”
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The management teams for Palladium, PLDM and Otz will also remain intact for now, although Waters said the team would evaluate future options for Palladium.
Waters assuming a new role wasn’t the only move behind the scenes. Truman Kim, the current chairman of K-Swiss Global Brands, will now also take on the role of CEO.
Remington came out of retirement to become Palladium’s president roughly five years ago, and was named the President and CEO of K-Swiss Global Brands in 2013 after the E.Land World Ltd. acquisition. Waters started with Palladium in 2009 as the brand’s VP of Marketing, and with the E.Land World Ltd. acquisition was named the chief marketing officer of K-Swiss Global Brands.
