Once he starts in January, though, the hard part begins — grappling with a handful of crises and above all breathing new life into a sports brand that desperately needs a new generation of hot-selling sneakers and apparel.
“To me, Bjorn is the right guy for the right time,” Liedtke, who left Adidas at the end of 2019, said in an interview. “It’s a great day for the Three Stripes. It needs a fresh start.” His entire career has been in sports and fashion, and includes a seven-year stint at Adidas in the 1990s when he was senior vice president of apparel and accessories. He later became managing director of footwear retailer Deichmann, where he oversaw US subsidiaries Rack Room Shoes and Off Broadway Shoes. Gulden also served as CEO of Danish jewelry brand Pandora in 2012 before taking over the leadership of Puma the following year.
Adidas and Puma have a decades-long rivalry that used to prevent top executives from even contemplating a similar switch of employers. The two companies were founded by brothers — Adolf and Rudolf Dassler — who grew apart following World War II after having built a family shoemaking business in their hometown of Herzogenaurach.