Allbirds Announces Promotions within its Executive Leadership Team
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 08, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Allbirds, Inc. (Nasdaq: BIRD), a global lifestyle brand that innovates with naturally derived materials to make better footwear and apparel products in a better way, today announces promotions within its Executive Leadership Team.
Kate Ridley, Allbirds’s Chief Brand Officer, has been promoted to Chief Brand and Product Officer and Benny Joseph, Allbirds’s Chief Technology Officer, has been promoted to Chief Technology and Culture Officer.
Kate joined Allbirds in January 2022 from adidas where she most recently served as Senior Vice President of Brand in North America, and played an integral role in driving market-relevant product across lifestyle and performance categories, in concert with creative, results-driven marketing programs. Kate brings nearly 25 years of footwear experience to Allbirds, having started her career as a Category Manager at adidas from 2000 to 2012 and from 2014 to 2022 held positions of increasing responsibility across Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America.
Concurrent with Ms. Ridley’s promotion, Co-CEO Tim Brown will expand his focus to include leadership of Allbirds’s Innovation Futures team, which encompasses Innovation and Sustainability. This team’s mandate is to ideate and source future innovation that will help shape the next generation of Allbirds’s sustainable product. Tim will also dedicate more time to external communications and building partnerships to amplify brand messaging, as well as Allbirds’s positioning as an industry leader in sustainability.
Joey Zwillinger, Allbirds’s Co-CEO said, “One year post-IPO, we have so much to be proud of as an organization. These changes at the Executive Leadership Team level, coupled with other efforts the team is hard at work implementing to streamline processes and improve our supply chain, will best position Allbirds for its next phase of profitable growth. We have long envisioned uniting Brand and Product under one leader and we are thrilled to have found that leader in Kate Ridley.”
“As a purpose-native company, our mission and culture have always been key to Allbirds’s success. The creation of a new Chief Culture Officer role symbolizes how important the Flock is to the future of this company and our focus on maintaining our culture of success. As the longest-serving member of our Executive Leadership Team, Benny has a deep understanding of and love for our mission and culture, and a proven track record of being able to foster strong company culture in a remote-first environment, having successfully led a primarily remote team for the last several years. We look forward to elevating this role as we transition to a hybrid work environment.”
Tim Brown said, “Under Kate’s vision and leadership we have made enormous strides in amplifying the beloved Allbirds brand under our new northstar of ‘Super Natural Comfort.’ The time has come for Kate to take the next step into overseeing the day-to-day work managing Product, which has been part of our vision from day one of meeting her. Prior to joining Allbirds, Kate was instrumental in positioning adidas at the intersection of sport and culture, leveraging the brand’s sustainable innovation credentials to rise above the competition and we are so happy that she decided to join us as we embark on our next phase of growth as a public company.”
Kate Ridley said, “I am thrilled to formally announce my transition to lead both Brand and Product at such an exciting time in Allbirds’s journey. It has been an absolute joy working with Tim to understand his vision for the world class, sustainable products we create and I am honored to take that vision forward, and begin managing the day-to-day work of both the product and brand teams. I am excited to work with these talented teams to integrate them into one unified team, a crucial step as we continue to build a consumer-first organization and world class brand.”
About Allbirds
Headquartered in San Francisco, Allbirds is a global lifestyle brand that innovates with naturally derived materials to make better footwear and apparel products in a better way, while treading lighter on the planet. Allbirds’s story began with superfine New Zealand merino wool and has since evolved to include a eucalyptus tree fiber knit fabric and a sugarcane-based EVA SweetFoam®, castor bean oil-based SwiftFoam™, and Plant Leather. Allbirds serves customers across 36 countries in over 50 Allbirds stores and its e-commerce website,
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