Amer Sports has made some organizational changes, creating a “Winter & Outdoor” division and shifting its management functions. The new division is a combination of the Salomon, Atomic, Mavic, Arc’teryx and Bonfire units. It will be led by Kari Kauniskangas, a Finnish veteran of the group who is currently its senior vice president of sales and distribution. Based in Helsinki, he had previously run Amer Sports Europe out of Munich.
Both Jean-Luc Diard, the president of Salomon, and Michael Schineis, president of Atomic, will report to Kauniskangas. The new structure, which takes effect from next Sept. 1, makes sense from several points of view, including the fact that Atomic and Salomon will share some production facilities in the future. The Precor, Suunto and Wilson business units will remain unaffected by the change.
In a separate move, Amer Sports has created a sales and channel management division. This unit, headed by Thomas Ehrnrooth, Salomon’s vice president of sales and marketing, will comprise all of Amer Sport’s distribution and sales operations. Regional managers throughout the globe will report to Ehrnrooth. In addition, Amer Sports will name at a later date someone to head all corporate supply chain management and information technology operations.
