The Best Brand Builders and General Managers Are Already Out There Looking for Their Next Move Right Now, and the Only Real Question Is Whether You Find Them First or Someone Else Does
The executives who move markets rarely announce they are available, and the ones worth hiring are usually gone before a job description gets posted.
That is the problem the Bearhug Network exists to solve. Every week, Bearhug surfaces senior executives who are anonymized, vetted, and ready to be introduced, so the question for CEOs, investors, PE partners, and board members is not whether talent exists. The question is the one we ask every week. Who do you know?
This week, 41 profiles entered the network across ten functional areas. Marketing and Brand leads with nine executives, followed by General Management with eight. Product and Design and Sales and Commercial each bring seven profiles, and Operations and Supply Chain adds five. Digital and Ecommerce, Legal Compliance and Security, People and Culture, Finance and Strategy, and Customer Success round out the week with one profile each.
The standout accomplishments this week reflect the breadth of the group.
One general management executive consolidated a 17-brand outdoor recreation portfolio into two business units and built shared services that generated eight figures in annual savings annually.
A sales leader grew international revenue five times over at a global technical apparel brand, built a Japan distribution business from scratch representing four outdoor labels, and delivered 55% compound annual growth as President of Global Sales at a premium hydration brand.
On the brand side, an SVP guided an outdoor performance footwear brand through simultaneous flagship openings across four international markets during the gorpcore cultural inflection, while a product leader at the world's largest sportswear company holds a named patent on a fluid flow control sole structure and led the midsole innovation group through category-defining cushioning development.
Here is a fresh cross section of 41 of the hundreds of newly vetted executive profiles our team has added to the Bearhug Network this week, with dozens more being added daily.
BHRN-4609 🏢 General Management — Flagship retail is where a brand's promise either lands or collapses, and running a 68,000 square foot, six-floor experiential destination on Fifth Avenue is about as unforgiving a test of that as exists in consumer. Two-plus decades inside the same brand's direct retail organization, ascending from store-level coaching roles through multi-unit leadership to directing the centerpiece of a global DTC flagship strategy. Brands rebuilding their physical retail presence around consumer experience rather than transaction volume need someone who has lived that transformation from the floor up.
BHRN-4607 🛠️ Product — Performance cushioning platforms that define how footwear feels at global scale require engineers who understand both the molecular behavior of foam and the computational systems that model it. Named inventor on a fluid flow control sole structure patent, leading the midsole innovation group at the world's largest sportswear company, with product management experience at a Swiss running brand that redefined what cushioning could mean. Built for brands ready to construct a materials innovation function that can compete at the highest level.
BHRN-4625 🎯 Marketing — Heritage brand stewardship gets complicated fast when North America flips to a licensed model and the internal team shrinks to match, because keeping a 65-year-old casual footwear brand relevant across wholesale doors and owned channels with fewer resources is a different job than brand management at scale. This director has done exactly that at one of the most recognized names in comfort footwear, inside a parent portfolio that includes Merrell, Saucony, and Sweaty Betty.
BHRN-4598 🎯 Marketing — Retention and expansion marketing in SaaS is where most growth strategies quietly fall apart, especially when a company is racing toward a public offering and needs proof the model holds. At a tax-compliance SaaS platform, this marketer built the customer marketing function from scratch, grew existing-customer revenue 35% year-over-year, and held retention at 98.6% through a public IPO. Equally at home in consumer goods, where the same instinct turned a fly fishing brand into a nine-figure-trajectory DTC story.
BHRN-4642 📈 Sales — Thirty years selling into the office of the CFO, from Oracle and Workday to Vena, means the full map of how mid-market finance teams buy, implement, and then outgrow planning and budgeting platforms. Now the commercial lead for a top-20 U.S. accounting firm's CPM advisory practice, post-Blackstone acquisition, building the go-to-market motion that turns platform relationships into advisory revenue.
BHRN-4600 🛠️ Product — Performance apparel for a run brand fails when the product team is built by footwear people who treat apparel as an accessory. This leader spent over a decade at a flagship performance brand building run and competitive training categories from the inside, then stepped into a VP mandate at a Berkshire Hathaway-owned run label to rebuild the apparel architecture from product to creative function. Latin America commercial and merchandising depth adds international range most performance apparel leaders at this level do not carry.
BHRN-4626 ⚙️ Operations — Merchandising judgment and supply chain architecture rarely live in the same person, and almost never at VP level inside a category hitting nine figures in footwear revenue while opening retail doors across three continents at once. This executive holds both sides of that equation at a global outdoor performance brand navigating DTC acceleration, a new CEO chapter, and aggressive expansion across Greater China, APAC, and flagship European markets. Built for brands asking whether product mix and fulfillment can actually keep pace with the growth the market is demanding.
BHRN-4605 🖥️ Digital — When a mission-driven apparel brand outgrows its DTC roots and wholesale becomes a real strategic bet, the executive managing that transition has to protect a decade of community trust while opening channels that could dilute it. This executive held the CMO and GM E-Commerce seats at a comfort apparel brand through its highest-growth years, carrying Goldman Sachs capital markets discipline into every channel mix and customer acquisition decision most brand-side operators make on instinct alone.
BHRN-4635 🎯 Marketing — Enterprise SaaS content has to earn trust with skeptical technical buyers across a long sales cycle, and generic thought leadership fails before the second paragraph. This director built and led that content function at a publicly traded construction technology platform, creating messaging architecture that worked for general contractors, owners, and specialty contractors without collapsing into one voice. A content leader built for platforms where complexity has to become clarity before a deal can close.
BHRN-4606 ⚙️ Operations — Wholesale fulfillment at a global athletic brand is not a static function, it is a constant negotiation between what retailers demand and what a supply chain built for a different era can actually deliver. Two decades inside the world's largest sportswear company, spanning account operations, global supplier management, and directing North America marketplace operations through an active turnaround. Brings a rare command of how supply chain decisions translate directly into retail outcomes.
BHRN-4638 🎯 Marketing — When a fishing and outdoor lifestyle brand lands in new ownership and needs a retail identity built from scratch, the gap between niche product and scalable brand presence has to be closed fast. This executive has done exactly that, running brand, merchandising, and category strategy at a major headwear company, a VF Corporation workwear division, and a premium fishing lifestyle brand. Built for post-acquisition brand development in outdoor and active lifestyle categories.
BHRN-4603 📈 Sales — Multi-brand commercial architecture across a PE-owned outdoor portfolio requires someone who has already solved the channel tension between premium brand protection and distribution scale, not someone learning it on the job. This operator built that architecture at a premium alpine performance brand and a devotedly community-driven hunting apparel brand before leading DTC commercial strategy across a multi-brand housewares and hydration platform. Rare breadth across technical outdoor, hunting performance, and consumer goods gives a portfolio commercial leader the full range the role actually demands.
BHRN-4610 📈 Sales — Embedded analytics is a category where most enterprise software companies stall at the demo stage, unable to close ISV and OEM partners who need more than a feature pitch. This sales executive built the embedded revenue motion at two analytics platforms, rising to VP at a high-growth search-and-AI analytics company before moving to a platform-scale data and AI organization. Bring this person in when your product needs to live inside someone else's software and your sales team has never sold that way before.
BHRN-4637 📈 Sales — Scaling a direct mail automation platform five times over in three years earns a VP Global Sales title at a Series C ecommerce SaaS. This revenue leader has done that, then expanded into full VP Revenue ownership at a workflow automation platform before taking on global GTM at an AI-powered support platform built for DTC brands. Bring them in when the commercial motion needs to mature fast without losing velocity.
BHRN-4608 🛠️ Product — Most product directors have built category architecture inside a stable business or a small one, rarely both. This director relaunched a full outdoor performance line inside one of the largest athletic companies in the world, covering trail running, hiking, and exploration across every major market, while the parent organization was actively restructuring around them. Founder-level product instincts, enterprise-scale merchandising discipline.
BHRN-4612 🏢 General Management — When a passion-lifestyle brand loses its founder and faces a global pandemic in the same year, the question is whether the culture survives the pressure or quietly dies inside it. This operator held both, stewarded a nine-figure snowsports company through that window without losing commercial momentum or balance sheet discipline, and handed off a locked three-year plan with zero organizational debt. Built for a board seat or divisional presidency where the hardest version of this problem is already on the table.
BHRN-4639 🛠️ Product — When a pure-DTC brand wins its first major outdoor retail accounts, the product architecture that earned loyal customers online rarely survives contact with wholesale unscathed. This product leader solved that transition at a bootstrapped performance accessories brand sustaining triple-digit growth, managing channel expansion without diluting the product identity that built the brand. Credible across action sports, outdoor active lifestyle, and performance apparel, with the range to hold the line from concept through retail shelf.
BHRN-4618 🏢 General Management — Finance leaders who become CEOs see where margin leaks and where channel mix decisions compound in ways operators who grew up in sales rarely do. This executive spent eight years as CFO of a multi-brand specialty archery platform before stepping into the CEO seat, building a decade-long view of exactly where the VP and director layer builds enterprise value or quietly erodes it. PE-backed platforms need general managers who hold CFO discipline and CEO commercial judgment at the same time
BHRN-4641 🛠️ Product — Getting an enterprise workforce of tens of thousands to actually use an AI platform is harder than building one. This director built the adoption programs and managed the ML, NLP, and deep learning portfolio that made it happen at one of the largest enterprise data platforms in the world. Brings that portfolio management discipline to organizations that need AI capabilities to land, not just launch.
BHRN-4595 🎯 Marketing — Scaling pipeline at B2B software companies is a different problem when the product sits at the intersection of analytics and AI, because the buyer's journey rarely maps to the playbook built for simpler tools. This demand generation director has built and rebuilt that motion at an AI-powered analytics platform and a behavioral analytics company, using a digital-first channel mix tuned to how technical buyers actually evaluate software. Hire this person when product-market fit exists but the demand engine is still being assembled.
BHRN-4617 🏢 General Management — Hunting and fishing categories punish brand operators who lack authentic category fluency, because specialty retail buyers and core consumers can spot a poser instantly. Fourteen-plus years on the buy side at a dominant outdoor big-box retailer built a buyer's-eye view most brand operators never develop. Running a multi-brand outdoor performance portfolio now, with category-leading positions in scent control, waterfowl, and fishing apparel earned through product discipline and deliberate acquisition.
BHRN-4631 🏢 General Management — When a performance footwear brand is mid-rocket-ship and the Canadian market demands its own sales and marketing accountability, the organizational wiring rarely keeps up with the growth. This general manager has held that full P&L responsibility through a brand's strongest revenue period, navigating the tension between a large-cap public parent's strategic priorities and the distinct demands of Canadian run specialty and sporting goods retail. Built for brands where local market execution cannot wait for global infrastructure to catch up.
BHRN-4624 ⚙️ Operations — When a founder-led outdoor brand swings from hypergrowth to a demand correction, the supply chain either adapts or the brand gives back everything it earned. This operator managed that exact cycle at a B-Corp outdoor lifestyle brand, holding sourcing discipline and inventory strategy through a full boom-to-correction sequence while the organization reset around new leadership. Built for brands where operational maturity has to catch up to the growth the sales team already sold.
BHRN-4630 🏢 General Management — Heritage outdoor brands expanding into brick-and-mortar face a version of the same trap every time: open too fast and the store feels like a souvenir shop, open too slow and the wholesale channel fills the void with off-brand presentations. This VP has managed that exact tension during an active flagship expansion at a heritage outdoor brand, holding channel integrity while growing both DTC stores and specialty wholesale simultaneously.
BHRN-4628 ⚖️ Legal — Running information security inside a privately held, family-rooted manufacturer with retail operations across 110+ countries means the threat surface is as complex as the distribution footprint. This director has built and managed that security architecture at a premium work and heritage footwear company through a period of significant digital investment, including cloud infrastructure migration, fit-technology partnerships, and an omnichannel B2B platform rollout. Bring this to any consumer brand navigating the gap between legacy operational IT and modern security standards without shutting down the business in the process.
BHRN-4597 📈 Sales — GTM engines don't build themselves, and the gap between a scrappy startup with no outbound motion and a nine-figure business with a real channel network is exactly the problem this operator has solved. At a B2B messaging platform, that meant building the SDR function, the ABM infrastructure, and the partner ecosystem from scratch, growing headcount from a small founding team to well over a hundred. Bring this to a company with a large TAM and a channel strategy that hasn't been fully unlocked yet.
BHRN-4633 ⚙️ Operations — Most early-stage fintech and digital assets companies get an operator or a seller, rarely someone who has been both at the same time. This COO ranked top 1% in enterprise SaaS sales before building operations from scratch across a Bitcoin ATM network, a crypto trading platform, and a fintech startup. Wired for the zero-to-one phase where selling, building, and running the business fall to the same person.
BHRN-4616 👥 People & Culture — Inspection robots are a hard sell when the buyer has never purchased an autonomous quadruped and has no procurement category for one. Built the North American commercial function for a growth-stage industrial robotics company from its first U.S. office, closing enterprise partnerships with global energy majors and industrial OEMs while serving as the public face of market entry.
BHRN-4636 🎯 Marketing — Building a marketing function from scratch is a different job than optimizing one that already exists. This executive has done the from-scratch version four times, at a baby gear brand she grew tenfold, a kids movement platform where she expanded the home audience by more than 500%, a dental services organization spanning hundreds of practices, and a telehealth obesity care company navigating a category that barely existed when she arrived. Built for boards that need a commercial engine before they can scale one.
BHRN-4634 ⚙️ Operations — Specialty retail at scale is hard enough before a 414-store acquisition doubles the footprint overnight and scrambles every operational assumption the business was built on. This executive has managed multi-unit operations, merchandising strategy, and e-commerce across a 95-store specialty golf chain and a multi-brand digital commerce platform, building the cross-channel muscle that post-merger integration demands. Brought into the room when retail complexity outpaces the org chart, and the operator who has to make the combined entity actually work.
BHRN-4627 🎯 Marketing — When an outdoor performance footwear brand crosses from niche credibility into global mainstream, the marketing infrastructure has to scale across flagship retail, DTC, and cultural relevance all at once without losing the original audience. This SVP drove that exact transition inside a major outdoor performance house, leading brand and marketing through sustained double-digit growth, simultaneous flagship openings across four international markets, and the gorpcore moment turning from subculture to mass consumer pull. Built for brands where the cultural window is open and execution has to move at the same speed.
BHRN-4596 💰 Finance — Translating founder instinct into financial architecture that boards can actually execute against is a different skill than running finance inside an established institution. This operator built that skill across a cross-border ecommerce exit at 4x, FP&A leadership inside a scaling SaaS platform, and a co-founded capital advisory practice. Fluent in the numbers a company needs at each stage of the growth story.
BHRN-4629 🎯 Marketing — Email as a revenue channel at a DTC-native hunting and outdoor brand is not the same problem as email at a brand that discovered direct-to-consumer late. At a brand that was born without wholesale and built its entire customer relationship through owned channels, the email program carries weight that most lifecycle marketers never have to manage. This is a director who has built and run that program inside a PE-backed, now conservation-family-owned brand at the edge of its next retail expansion.
BHRN-4602 📈 Sales — Most brands treat Amazon and specialty wholesale as a strategic tradeoff, one grows while the other shrinks. A commercial leader who built a dealer network from hundreds of accounts to more than 1,200 while simultaneously restructuring an Amazon channel to recover nearly 20 gross margin points proved the tradeoff is a false choice. The work happened across a heritage fishing apparel brand and three of the most respected fly fishing labels in the specialty market.
BHRN-4601 📈 Sales — Premium outdoor brands plateau when their commercial architecture was built for one market and was never designed to travel. This operator grew international sales 5x at a global technical apparel brand, built a Japan distribution business from scratch representing four outdoor labels, and delivered 55% compound annual growth as President of Global Sales at a premium hydration brand. Brings the architecture for taking specialty-rooted brands into new geographies without trading down the brand equity that earned the original following.
BHRN-4622 🛠️ Product — Most product leaders can build a roadmap or build a team. Fewer can rebuild a pricing model, absorb engineering leadership mid-flight, and scale an EPD org from single digits to 36 people while ARR more than doubles. That combination, proven across a workplace SaaS platform and a B2B research tool from pre-revenue to acquisition, is what this operator brings to a company that needs both the architecture and the execution.
BHRN-4640 🤝 Customer Success — Cycling and outdoor retail is littered with companies that never solved the gap between a passionate consumer base and an omnichannel go-to-market that actually converts. This executive closed that gap across a major national outdoor co-op, a pioneering recommerce platform, and a Rivian-backed electric micromobility startup that reached unicorn valuation before shipping its first product. Built for brands at the intersection of active lifestyle and emerging mobility that need someone who can design the customer experience and the commercial architecture at the same time.
BHRN-4604 🎯 Marketing — Running brand marketing across four separate action sports and outdoor consumer communities simultaneously is a fundamentally different operating problem than running one brand well. This executive has done exactly that at a major outdoor recreation portfolio, while carrying VP Global Brand Marketing experience at a performance golf equipment leader and GM-level P&L ownership at a bags and accessories brand. Built for premium consumer brands that need someone who can hold cultural identity and commercial discipline in the same hand.
BHRN-4619 🏢 General Management — Selling tactical gear, ammunition, and hardgoods protection products into military, law enforcement, and commercial channels across more than 20 countries is a different discipline than consumer brand sales. This executive built that distribution network through a major defense-sector acquisition, ran nine-figure international territory revenue across government and military channels, and now leads a multi-brand manufacturer serving defense, law enforcement, and outdoor markets. The person a hardgoods brand calls when channel complexity, international distribution, and brand architecture all need to move together.
BHRN-4632 🛠️ Product — Rare in enterprise SaaS product management, a CPA who crossed the aisle from corporate tax into building the software that CFOs depend on. Built ML-driven anomaly detection into financial reporting workflows at a cloud ERP platform serving more than half the Fortune 500, after owning tax, audit, and core accounting product areas at the same company. A finance-practitioner-turned-product-leader who speaks both languages fluently and ships features that close the gap between what accountants need and what engineers build.
BHRN-4621 🏢 General Management — Most manufacturing CEOs inherit a product business and optimize it. This one inherited a government and law enforcement manufacturer serving customers across roughly 40 countries, then built a services division from zero to 45 percent of revenue, ran two full M&A processes, and brought a mining industry background nobody else in the category had. Built for PE platforms in manufacturing or industrial services that need a CEO who has already done the zero-to-one services build inside a capital-intensive, government-adjacent business.
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