The North Face puts Arne Arens in charge of Americas region

By

Olivier Guyot

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Mar 21, 2017

Arne Arens has a sizeable challenge on his hands. The General Manager of The North Face's EMEA region since 2012, he has now been appointed Vice-President and General Manager of the outdoor brand's Americas region.

In charge of sales, merchandising and direct consumer sales, Arens will have to draw on all of his savvy to steer The North Face's American business back on the right track. In the last quarter, closed at the end of December, the US outdoor specialist suffered in fact a double-digit sales shortfall, after its wholesale business took a 30% plunge.

For his part, Arne Arens engineered a sales growth in excess of 30% in the brand's European own-store network, and a double-digit one in wholesale too, compared to the last quarter of the 2015 fiscal year.

Before taking full charge of Europe in 2012, Arens worked two years as Vice-President Sales for The North Face, having joined the VF Corp brand in 2010 after spending seven years at Nike. He began his career in a consulting firm.

Arens replaced François Goulet in his new post, and the name of his successor as head of EMEA is expected to be announced in the next few weeks.