Puma has opted for both continuity and rejuvenation in picking Franz Koch, the company's young head of global strategy, to become its chief executive in a few weeks' time. He has become a member of Puma's management board since the start of this week.

Koch has been helping to set Puma's strategic direction since he joined the company four years ago, and he has been instrumental in putting together its latest five-year growth plan, “Back on the Attack,” which calls for Puma's annual revenues to reach at least €4 billion by 2015. Furthermore, Koch has worked on Puma's investments in long-term sustainability and on the restructuring plan launched by the management in 2009 to overcome the economic downturn. He will take over as chief executive upon Puma's transformation into a Societas Europaea (SE), shortly after its general shareholders' assembly on April 14.

Koch displays many of the same characteristics that the present chief executive, Jochen Zeitz, had when he took over the helm as an intrepid young manager to redress the ailing Puma in 1993. Likewise, Koch is only 32 years old and he combines analytical skills with a pragmatic approach. As witnessed by those who attended Puma's investor day in Herzogenaurach last November, he is an outstanding communicator as well.

Introducing Koch in a conference call yesterday, François-Henri Pinault, chairman of PPR, which owns the majority of Puma's shares, said that the nomination of the new chief executive of the sports company was unanimously supported by Puma's board of directors, after more than 100 internal and external candidates were reviewed and interviewed. The choice was described as an illustration of Puma's and PPR's strategy to empower young and ambitious employees.

Koch joined Puma in 2007 as global strategic planner and became head of global strategy one year later. Coming from Lübeck in northern Germany, he previously spent several years at Oliver Wyman, an international management consultancy. He graduated in business administration from Leipzig's Graduate School of Management, and he holds a master's degree in commerce from the University of Sydney. He speaks German, English, Spanish and some French.

A tall and lanky German, Koch is shown in a picture wearing trendy wide-rimmed glasses and a very short haircut. In the conference call, he joked that he was fortunate to have fairly large feet, given the size of the boots he has to fill.

Some analysts apparently fear the newcomer will not quite reach the same stature as Zeitz - at least this is part of the explanation for a drop of about 20 percent in Puma's share price since the announcement made last October that Zeitz would be leaving his present post. Puma's shares fell again by a little more than 1 percent when Koch's appointment was announced on Monday and they dropped by more than 4 percent so far this morning, but Frankfurt is in the doldrums due to the disaster in Japan. The hit is on the same scale in Paris, where PPR's shares dropped by nearly 2.5 percent on Monday and by another 6 percent so far this morning.

Once Puma's transformation into an SE is formally approved, Zeitz will hand over the helm to Koch but he will continue to supervise Puma as executive chairman of its new one-tier board. Zeitz will head the lifestyle division of PPR, which chiefly consists of Puma for the time being but is meant to expand through the acquisitions of other brands. Zeitz has also become the French group's chief sustainability officer.

Apart from his many professional skills, Koch is described as an open and empathetic person, and he is also sports-minded.. Koch has been a professional field hockey player, and he became German champion in the category in 2000 with his team, HTHC Hamburg. He also enjoys surfing, skiing, cycling and golf.

In a show of continuity, Koch said many changes had taken place in the last years at Puma and he did not expect to make any more radical moves any time soon. In the same conference call, Zeitz was reluctant to point to any differences in style between the incoming and the outgoing chief executives. He stressed that Koch strongly supports the management principles valued by Puma, calling for employees to be fair, honest, positive and creative. Furthermore, Zeitz said that Koch's youth would give him the right attitude to lead a sports lifestyle company like Puma.