He replaces Herbert Hainer, who has more than doubled revenue in 15 years in charge but has struggled to keep up with United States rival Nike.
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After the announcement of his departure, Henkel’s stock fell by 5 percent, while Adidas’s stock increased by 4 percent.
Adidas AG, the German parent of Canton’s Reebok International, yesterday named the former head of Dial soap maker Henkel AG & Co.as its new CEO, with the goal of reviving the No. 2 athletic brand’s growth.
He also brings tech-industry experience to Adidas, which may serve him well as the company seeks to quadruple e-commerce sales by 2020 and invests in robot-equipped factories to bring some production back to Europe from Asia, and eventually into stores.
Since Mr Rorsted took over at Henkel in 2008, shares in the company have more than tripled, while its annual sales have grown more than a third to about €18bn estimated for a year ago.
“Kasper Rorsted is the flawless candidate to succeed Herbert Hainer as CEO of Adidas AG”, Landau said in a statement, Fox Business quoted. Effective August 1, 2016, Kasper Rorsted (53) is appointed as ordinary member of the Executive Board and effective October 1, 2016 as CEO of adidas AG. His push into North America with brands such as Persil detergent and Schwarzkopf shampoo was key to Henkel’s strategy to catch some of the company’s biggest competitors in the consumer goods market. “After a two-month transition period, Herbert Hainer will relinquish his executive board mandate effective September 30, 2016”.
Mr Rorsted has worked at Oracle, Compaq and Hewlett Packard, as well as eight years running Henkel.
“We welcome the appointment of Mr. Rorsted as successor to Mr. Hainer and hope that the long dry spell for Adidas’s profitability will come to an end”, said Union Investment fund manager Ingo Speich. And his contract was originally scheduled to run until 2017.
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Henkel has announced the exit of CEO Kasper Rorsted, effective end-April 2016, on the latter’s own request.
