COO and President Dan Sheridan of Brooks Running
Courtesy: Brooks
Long time CEO Berkshire Hathaway Brooks Running CEO Jim Weber will step down after more than 20 years in the company's top job, the company will announce Tuesday.
Brooks veteran Dan Sheridan, who started at the company in a marketing role in 1998 and worked his way up to chief operating officer and president, will assume his role on April 26.
Weber, who brought Brooks back from the brink of bankruptcy, guided it through four different owners and built it into a billion-plus brand, told CNBC he was sad to step down and leave what he called “the best job in the world.” But after recovering from cancer several years ago, he said he was looking forward to “getting back in touch” and finding more balance in his life.
“I'm very proud of what we've built. I've been CEO for 23 years, and if you add the two years before that as a board member, it's been 25 years, so it's been a great run,” Weber said. In an interview. “We have a company that has achieved a lot and has an amazing opportunity to look to the future. We have momentum now.”
Sheridan inherits what he calls a thriving business. He has taken on a bigger role in its construction in the past few years as Weber grooms him to take over.
Last year, Brooks generated sales of $1.2 billion, an increase of more than 5% globally. Most of this growth came in North America, where the company accounts for about 80% of its total revenue.
Looking to the future, Sheridan has his eyes on global expansion and building Brooks' product offering. This includes plans to build the first Brooks Running store in China, an “absolute growth market” for the brand, according to Sheridan. The company also aims to expand direct sales in the United States and grow wholesale partnerships in Europe, he said.
“I'm fortunate that there aren't a lot of new CEOs who step in and inherit what I would call a sound business, a sound culture, a sound brand, and the strength that we have is very unique,” Sheridan said. “So I don't have to shift, and I don't have to make sweeping changes.”
Shortly after Brooks Running became a stand-alone subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway in 2012, Weber and his team were asked to begin succession planning. Weber said they began to “formalize” and “professionalize” the process that ultimately led to Sheridan's hiring.
“Warren Buffett famously asked every CEO for a letter every year,” Weber said. “And in the letter, you had to say who your successor was, and he didn’t open it unless he had to.” “So we did that and… started really seriously planning for the succession.”
Brooks Running CEO Jim Weber
Courtesy: Brooks
As Sheridan rose through the ranks from sales executive to executive vice president overseeing global sales, his “insatiable” eagerness, curiosity and ambition to learn more about the company caught Weber's attention, the outgoing CEO said.
He identified Sheridan as someone who aspired to lead at a higher level. Over the past five years, Weber has spent time familiarizing his current successor with different parts of the business, covering everything from strategy and marketing to corporate functions such as legal and finance. As it became more clear in the past two years that Sheridan would take over Weber, the new CEO was able to step into the driver's seat and execute the strategy.
“His fingerprints over the last 24 months are all over our strategy,” Weber said.
Although Sheridan has seen every aspect of the business and is “prepared” for the top job, his biggest challenges still lie ahead, Weber said. Running performance is a bright spot in an otherwise stressed footwear market, but Sheridan will have to contend with an uncertain economy, supply chain disruptions, intense competition and the ever-changing whims of the target consumer, to name a few of the hurdles.
“I think what I learned most during my time with Jim is that in these very demanding roles, judgment is the most important thing for any leader,” Sheridan said. “Judgment is something you gain through experience, but it's also something you gain through thoughtful listening in the team around you. So I'm honing my judgment for the future…and that's something Jim instilled in me and helped me fine-tune.”
