After spending his whole career at Salomon, the company’s 50-year-old president, Jean-Luc Diard, is leaving the Amer Sports group to pursue other unspecified interests as Michael Schineis, president of Atomic, is named president of a new combined winter sports equipment business area of the group. Noting that Schineis is a long-time veteran of the Finnish group and that he has extensive experience with both Atomic and Salomon, Amer says the move is designed to maximize its competitive advantage in this sector, where it is market leader.
In the same go, Amer has created a new business area for footwear and apparel that combines Arc’terx with Salomon’s growing operations in this sector. Jean-Marc Pambet, currently general manager of Salomon apparel and footwear, is placed in charge of this new unit of the group. Observers speculate that its resources may be placed at the disposal of other Amer brands in the future.
Bernard Millaud will continue as general manager of Mavic, Salomon’s cycling subsidiary in Annecy, France. Like Schineis and Pambet, he will now report directly to Roger Talermo, president and chief executive of Amer Sports, instead of Diard. Millaud will also take the responsibility for the legal entity of Salomon SA in Annecy. Jari Melgin, now vice president of finance and administration at Salomon, will be responsible for these functions in relation to the winter and outdoor businesses of the group.
Schineis will continue to be based in Austria, but he will travel more frequently, delegating new functions to other executives within Amer’s winter sports department. While taking care of Mavic, Millaud will act as the new general manager of Salomon’s winter sports equipment division in France, reporting in this role to Schineis and replacing Philippe Dubé who will focus on special assignments for Amer.
In Austria, Schineis will be aided by Wolfgang Mayrhofer and by Wilhelm Kerl, who will be jointly responsible for the legal entity of Atomic in Altenmarkt. Mayrhofer, who has been recently Atomic’s vice president of sales and marketing, becomes the new general manager of Atomic. Kerl remains as director of operations at Atomic, but he will also be in charge of evaluating potential models for the group’s winter sports equipment production.
These changes are expected to develop more synergies between Atomic and Salomon upstreams. One of the options could be a closer relationship with Pamporo Ski, the Bulgarian contractor that Atomic has been using for its junior skis and that has begun to manufacture cross-country skis for both Atomic and Salomon. The company is going to be profitable even this year, in spite of the dramatic conditions of the global ski market (we visited them for our research project on Southeastern Europe a few days ago).
The changes have become effective immediately. Diard’s future plans could not be determined. The French executive started at Salomon as an intern in 1982, when the company was focusing only on ski boots. He led its diversification into skis, hiking boots and clothing and the acquisition of a couple of American firms. He was elevated to the top post shortly after the company was taken over by Adidas, replacing Jean-François Gautier who now heads up Rossignol.
