Elevate Outdoor Collective’s new ‘One Team’ approach restructures global sales

Elevate Outdoor Collective (EOC), formerly K2 Sports, which includes the K2 Ski, K2 Snowboarding, Völkl, Marker, Dalbello, Line, Ride, BCA, Tubbs Snowshoes, Atlas Snowshoes, Madshus and K2 Skates brands, has announced a fundamental change to its global sales structure designed to support the growth of the independent brands. The change, which has already taken effect in June 2022, shifts the previously existing structure from fragmented regional to a single team in each region supporting all 12 EOC brands. The structure will shift to a category offense in each region and will be globally aligned to strengthen go-to-market capabilities and service to key partners. In practice, this means that each of the global regions will have a single commercial sales leader with category leads supporting them over the ski, snowboard, and outdoor brands. These regional leaders will report directly to CEO John Colonna and become part of the senior leadership team.

Longtime employee Peter Kuba, who is based in Germany, will take on the largest commercial role in the company as EU general manager for all EOC brands. Kuba is celebrating 25 years with the company, where he started in product lifecycle management for skates and field hockey. Since then, he has served as managing director, sales manager for K2 Skis Europe, sales manager for K2 Snowboarding Europe and sales director for the entire K2 Sports Europe portfolio. Reporting to him is his long-time colleague Stefan Stankalla in the newly created role of commercial director, ski & ski boot brands EOC EU.

In the U.S., Greg Grip steps into the new role of VP of U.S. sales for all EOC brands. Grip will work directly with the global HQ teams to expand opportunities in the U.S. In his time with the company, Grip has successfully steered Marker, Völkl and Dalbello through Covid and positioned the brands for the tremendous growth they are now experiencing. Prior to that, he was sales manager for the European ski brands. Grip began his career leading the Marker brand, which he grew to become the largest and most successful binding manufacturer in the U.S. with a dominant market share.

Dominic McKenna assumes a similar role as Canadian GM for all brands. He will continue to work strategically alongside the U.S. business, driving the success of all brands while building momentum and execution capabilities. McKenna began his career at K2 Canada in a marketing role.

For Japan and international distributors, the leadership team is currently evaluating the best structure and strategic approach with announcements coming soon on how to better support both opportunities.

“I continue to be energized by both the business results and the ability to manage change from our teams globally. Our ‘One Team’ approach is beginning to build best-in-class capabilities to unlock our full potential,” commented CEO Colonna.