Bernd Wahler is leaving Adidas to become president of the VfB Stuttgart football team, where he played in his youth, in September. Aged 55, he has been acting lately as senior vice president of innovation at the Big a, responsible for technology. Wahler first joined Adidas in 1987 and worked in product marketing before moving to the U.S. in 1993 as marketing director of Adidas America. He worked his way up to senior vice president in charge of global marketing and led, for a while, Erima when it was still a subsidiary of Adidas. Wahler left the group in 1998 to run Bally, the Swiss footwear company. Two years later he returned to the sports sector as German country manager for Nike. He left in 2004 to set up his own sports and marketing agency, Sportsgeist, working for Adidas and Porsche Design. Three years later he joined Adidas again as chief marketing officer for its Sport Performance division, but in 2011 his responsibilities were taken over by Herbert Deininger, who has also been in charge of marketing for the Sport Style division

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