During the course of preparing for our relaunch, I have found myself increasingly frustrated that I never ended up getting to present my thoughts on this topic.
I came up with the title for a talk I was due to hold at the Women’s Bouldering Festival, I was given free rein on the subject I would speak on, and this was what I deemed the most important conversation that needed to be had, at the time.
Unfortunately I was unable to attend to present my ideas on the matter, but I thought I’d do a bit of research to see what progress has been made in the 3 years I've been gone...
Obviously this is far from an exhaustive list of brands and organisations, however I believe it does a very good job at highlighting the fact that the decision makers controlling the sales and marketing of the products and services we rely on to participate in the sports and recreational activities we enjoy, are still uber-rich men. (Shall I bring race into this? Do I need to? I think at this point it’s not necessary, because apparently we’re still failing at giving even white women these positions and opportunities, so a gentle nod is all that’s necessary it in this conversation, clearly there is still more work to be done before the world is ready to have that chat fr).
Below you’ll find a list of the current CEO’s of some of the most popular clothing, energy drink brands and sporting federations according to google (There are rumours going around that we can’t trust Google anymore, so I welcome you to do your own, deeper research and get in touch with any corrections that should be made).
I have included the owner of some companies but not others, I can’t be bothered to go down that wormhole this morning but if you feel like it, I’d direct you to look at large and high end Fashion corporations to see if you can find some similarities in the ownership trends (and owners) I think you might.
Anyway, here it is, the list that has ruined my day. lol.
Outdoor Brands
Columbia - Timothy Boyle
Rab - Equip Outdoor Technologies - Richard Leedham
Mountain Hardware - Columbia Sportswear - Troy Sicotte
Salomon - ANTA Sports - Franco Fogliato
REI Coop - Eric Artz
Arcteryx - AMER Sports - Stuart C. Haselden
The North Face - VF Corporation - Bracken Darrell
Patagonia - Ryan Gellert
Energy Drinks
Redbull - Dietrich Mateschitz
Monster - Rodney Sacks
Tenzing - Huib Van Bockel
Prime - Jeremy Lantz
Rockstar - Russell Weiner
Celsius - John Fieldly
Mountain Dew - Ramon Laguarta
Sporting Federations
International Cycling Union - David Lappartient
International Federation of Sport Climbing - Marco Scolaris
International Tennis Federation - Kelly Fairweather
United World Wrestling - Nenad LALOVIC
World Rowing - Vincent Gallard
International Federation for Equestrian Sports - Ingmar De Vos
It’s 2024.
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