Under Armour Makes Shifts in Executive Team
Under Armour, Inc. said Wednesday that David Baxter and Mehri Shadman will join its executive leadership team, effective Oct. 24.
Baxter will join as president of the Americas, succeeding Stephanie Pugliese, who will be exiting the company early next year. Until then she will remain to support the transition.
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Shadman has been named chief legal officer and corporate secretary succeeding John Stanton, who will retire at the end of the 2022 after 16 years with the Baltimore-based sports brand.
“We’re very excited to recognize the talent that David and Mehri bring to our business,” said Colin Browne, Under Armour’s interim president and chief executive officer. “With deep market knowledge and outstanding expertise — we look forward to their proven leadership qualities helping to architect our next growth chapter.”
Browne continued, “As one of our longest serving executives, we want to congratulate John on his retirement and thank him for his many contributions to UA, including building our legal function from a small team following our initial public offering to a world-class global function. We also thank Stephanie for her contributions to Under Armour over the last three years, particularly her leadership of our largest region during a highly uncertain retail environment.”
Baxter joined Under Armour in 2020 as senior vice president, Americas wholesale but before that had served as president and CEO of Lids Sports Group from 2016 to 2019. Prior to that, he was vice president of Adidas America’s Sport Performance division from 2010 to 2014.
Shadman has spent nine years at Under Armour and is currently deputy general counsel, corporate and risk, and assistant corporate secretary. She currently oversees the corporate, global ethics and compliance, data privacy, and enterprise risk management functions. In her new role, she will oversee the company’s global legal function and serve as corporate secretary. Before Under Armour, Shadman began her career as an associate at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP, in its capital markets practice.
In May, Under Armour announced that Patrik Frisk, who had served as CEO for just over two years, would be leaving his position on June 1 and would be succeeded by Browne. The company has been struggling with heightened competition and internal issues and when its first-quarter results were reported in August, the company said it was facing inventory challenges and inflationary pressures that are expected to impact performance the rest of this year.
