With the appointment of Archie McEachern, a former Timberland and Nike employee, as the new vice president of basketball, effective 18th August, Puma is doubling down on basketball.
McEachern will be located in Boston and will answer to Maria Valdes, Puma’s chief product officer, according to the German sportswear brand. He takes over for Max Staiger, who departed the firm earlier this year to take a position at Adidas as general manager of basketball.
McEachern joins Puma from Timberland, a brand owned by VF Corp., where he most recently held the positions of chief merchandising officer and vice president since May 2023. From 2021 until 2022, McEachern served as the CEO of 360 Hoops, a basketball innovation start-up, before joining Timberland.
His 28 years with Nike, however, accounted for the majority of his experience. McEachern began working for the company in 1992 and rose through the ranks of footwear positions, including vice president of merchandising in Japan, senior merchandising director of basketball in North America, and general manager of basketball in Asia Pacific. In 2020, McEachern departed Nike, having most recently served as Greater China’s vice president of category merchandising.
This announcement follows Puma’s appointment of Andreas Hubert, an Adidas veteran, as its new chief operational officer, effective 1st September.
Puma shocked local markets in July by revealing preliminary second-quarter earnings that fell short of forecasts and then drastically lowering its full-year guidance.
In currency-adjusted terms, Puma’s revenues decreased by 2% between April and June, reaching US $ 2.23 billion. This indicated that, in currency-adjusted terms, the brand’s sales fell by 1% during the first half of 2025 compared to the same period last year. Puma sales have totalled US $ 4.62 billion so far in 2025.
