Patrik Frisk was placed into the worst situation of any leader in the sneaker industry. There isn’t another publicly traded sneaker company I can create a top 10 missteps list about covering a 5–7-year timeframe.
- In March 2020 Under Armour had to borrow 700,000,000 to offset Covid. This happened in Frisk’s tenure but was due to the previous leaderships’ mistakes.
- Under Armour had to give up the sponsorship of UCLA allowing Jordan Brand to become the official brand of the legendary program.
- The Rock wears On Running during the Super Bowl giving a competing brand serious cache on the biggest stage in the world of sports.
- Under Armour loses the MLB Sponsorship and Nike now controls the major sports leagues.
- The Connected Fitness debacle which led to …
- Under Armour Layoffs almost every year and a restructuring that was projected at 190 million ended up being 220 million
- The company had to announce that employees could no longer use employee credit cards for strip clubs. The fact that the company had to state this while also accounting for
- The loss of Black executives at a company that was described by long time Nike man Drew Greer as “culturally anemic”.
- A share price that crashed from 40 a share down to under 10 dollars a share,
- And a CEO who sided with racist President when Plank decided to publicly announce support of Trump.
The crazy thing is I could continue to write about these issues, but the good thing was Plank stepped aside and Patrik Frisk ignited change. Under Frisk I can list another ten changes against an internal structure that was still rooted in the mistreatment of women and Black and Brown folks with the company, and departments working on razor thin budgets with very little help for the heads of the departments. Frisk was asked to put out oil fires with buckets of water. He found foam eventually which is why this step down at this moment is kind of confusing, but not really. What did Frisk do during his tenure?
- That 700-million-dollar loan, turned into UA hitting 5.7 billion in revenue this year. Before that happened, as difficult as it was internally at UA, these changes were made…
- Black Designers were given an opportunity to elevate and shine. Yurri Mial became the head of The Rock and Ed Wallace created the first running shoe under the Curry standalone line.
- Which reminds me, Frisk was at the helm when Curry Brand became UA’s version of Jordan Brand. A move that has been bolstered by Curry’s breaking of the three point record once held by Ray Allen.
- UA increased their minimum wage to an industry leading 15/hour.
- Frisk was the anti-Plank in writing a letter on equality: https://arch-usa.com/under-armour-ceo-patrik-frisk-wrote-a-letter-on-equality-under-armour-has-a-chance-to-rebuild-itself/
- The Brand introduced several programs to assist and work with Black folks: A Devin Allen led BHM program, another BHM program in direct support of an HBCU, the Access to Sport program for youth sports, they invested in Creators for Change, and backed and sponsored the National Coalition of Minority Football Coaches.
- Frisk stopped Under Armour from trying to be cool and doubled down on the Focused Performer changing the direction of where UA was trending.
- Led UA through the award-winning FLOW cushioning system enabling UA to become a real competitor in the running shoe and fitness space.
- UA endorsed women athlete in the WNBA and gave the support to the NCAA Champions in women’s basketball the South Carolina Gamecocks, which led to them investing in the Gamecock’s superstar Aliyah Boston’s home country of the Virgin Islands with the UA Next Program.
- This isn’t as sexy, but Frisk got UA out of off priced retail outlets like Kohl’s. Under Plank UA tried to be everywhere and be everything. Under Frisk, UA showed restraint and that changed their business.
What does this all mean? Frisk is stepping aside as the company has just completed a Transitional Quarter moving their Fiscal year. The company is breaking ground on new facility. I was told, off the record last week, that lower-level employees are leaving for the same reasons an exodus of employees left before, racial issues inside of the company in Portland. Under Armour appears to be trending in the right direction, but Frisk stepping down is surprising to me, but not completely unexpected. The man filling the CEO’s seat is Colin Browne who arrived a year before Frisk in 2016.
Since joining the company in 2016, Browne modernized Under Armour’s digital go-to-market strategy and direct-to-consumer model and transformed its supply chain organization, leading to significant margin improvement and operating efficiency. Browne has held the role of COO since 2020 and oversees supply chain, global planning, sustainability, information technology, enterprise data management, commercial optimization, go-to-market strategy, and distribution capabilities. Browne has been an integral part of the company’s successful transformation, and his leadership has been critical to navigating global supply challenges caused by the pandemic.
The logical explanation is that UA is done with restructuring and is ready to step into a stronger focus on building a Nike like Consumer Direct Offense. With Browne’s background having the COO take up leadership appears to be leaning into this aspect of the company. Will it work? If Frisk was really the Chief Restructuring Officer this entire time, a new CEO makes sense and offers UA to walk into this new Fiscal year with a fresh take on the next step for the brand. The last five years were critical to fixing a company that never truly had a plan. The next five years will be critical to a company still searching for an identity. Nike is sport. New Balance is fearlessly independent, and adidas has heritage. What is Under Armour? Better question, what is Under Armour with Lululemon, Hoka, On and Brooks now in the mix for the best brands in sport?
