Bjørn Gulden

Turning around a company has three components: It’s luck, it’s timing and it’s effort. I don’t know how much of each of these things contributed at any point in time, but it was obvious to me [from day one] we had good things bubbling that people hadn’t realised.

— Bjørn Gulden

~*~

Overview

Bjørn Gulden
Born	(1965-06-04) June 4, 1965 Zurich, Switzerland
Citizenship	Norwegian
Education	Bachelor's degree in business administration; Master of Business Administration
Alma mater	University of Rogaland (now University of Stavanger); Babson College
Occupation(s)	Business executive, former professional footballer
Employer	Adidas AG
Known for	Leading turnarounds at Puma and Adidas
Title	Chief Executive Officer
Term	2023–present
Predecessor	Kasper Rørsted
Board member of	Salling Group A/S (chairman); Tchibo (maxingvest) supervisory board; Borussia Dortmund (former board member)
Children	3
Awards	Fortune Businessperson of the Year (2019, list)

🧑‍💼 Bjørn Gulden (born 4 June 1965) is a Norwegian business executive and former professional footballer who has served as chief executive officer (CEO) of Adidas since 1 January 2023, and is widely credited with leading a high-profile turnaround of the German sportswear company after a period of crisis. Born in Zurich to Norwegian parents and raised in the Hallingdal valley, he combined an early career in professional football with later studies in business administration before moving into management roles in the sports and retail industries.

⚽ From football to boardroom. After a knee injury ended his playing days in the late 1980s, including appearances for Strømsgodset in Norway and a stint with 1. FC Nürnberg in Germany’s Bundesliga, Gulden earned a business degree from the University of Rogaland (now the University of Stavanger) and an MBA from Babson College in the United States, using his sporting discipline to underpin a second career in commerce. He went on to hold senior positions at Adidas, become chief executive of shoe retailer Deichmann, lead Danish jewellery company Pandora and, from 2013 to 2022, serve as chief executive of Puma, building a reputation as a hands-on operator with an intense focus on product and performance.

📈 Turnaround specialist. Gulden’s stewardship of Puma saw the company refocus on performance sports, sign marquee athletes and return to strong growth, after which he was recruited by Adidas in 2022 to steer the group through the aftermath of its split with Ye (Kanye West), inventory challenges and a rare net loss. Under his leadership Adidas quickly returned to profitability, raised its earnings guidance several times and enjoyed a sharp recovery in its share price, leading analysts and business media to highlight Gulden as one of the sporting goods industry’s most prominent turnaround executives.

~*~

Early life and playing career

👶 Family and childhood. Gulden was born in Zurich, Switzerland, to Norwegian parents and spent his childhood in the Hallingdal region of southern Norway, where sport played a central role in family life. His father, Arild Gulden, represented Norway in both handball and football, and the household’s strong sporting culture helped shape Bjørn’s early ambition to become a professional athlete.

🎓 Education and transition to business. After emerging as a promising footballer, Gulden balanced his early playing career with formal education, studying business administration at the University of Rogaland, which later became the University of Stavanger, before completing a Master of Business Administration at Babson College in Massachusetts. A serious knee injury cut short his time as a professional player by 1988, prompting what he later described as a decisive shift from pursuing success on the pitch to seeking it in the business of sport.

🥅 Professional football. During the 1980s Gulden played as a midfielder, appearing in 41 matches for Strømsgodset in Norway’s top division and spending a period with German side 1. FC Nürnberg in the Bundesliga, experience that later informed his appreciation of athlete needs and product performance.

~*~

Business career

🏢 Early roles at Adidas. Following his graduate studies, Gulden joined Adidas in 1992 at the company’s headquarters in Germany and progressed through a series of management positions to become senior vice president for apparel and accessories, overseeing product development and category growth in the 1990s. Colleagues later recalled that the former professional player brought an “obsession about product” to the role, immersing himself in design, materials and performance features.

👞 Deichmann and retail expansion. In 2000 Gulden left Adidas to become chief executive of Deichmann, Europe’s largest footwear retailer, where he also served as CEO of the group’s United States chains Rack Room Shoes and Off Broadway Shoes. Under his leadership Deichmann expanded to more than 3,000 stores across roughly 25 countries and generated multi-billion-euro revenues, giving Gulden extensive experience in global store networks, sourcing and family-owned corporate governance.

💍 Pandora jewellery. Gulden was appointed chief executive of Danish jewellery company Pandora in 2011, at a time when the firm was facing falling sales and questions over its growth model. Although he stepped down as CEO in mid-2013, he remained on the board until 2018 and is credited in company materials with helping refocus Pandora’s product and distribution strategy during a turbulent period.

🐆 Puma repositioning. In 2013 Gulden took over as chief executive of Puma, which had drifted away from performance sports into fashion and lost clarity about its brand identity. Drawing on his sporting background, he pushed the company back towards core categories such as running and football, reduced emphasis on purely fashion-driven collaborations, invested in research and development and increased marketing support for performance lines, while signing high-profile athletes including sprinter Usain Bolt and footballer Neymar.

📊 Puma performance and recognition. Under Gulden’s leadership from 2013 to 2022, Puma delivered steady double-digit annual growth and by 2021 reported record sales of €6.8 billion and profits of €557 million, with its share price outperforming those of both Nike and Adidas in that year. The company consolidated its position as the world’s third-largest sportswear brand, and in 2019 Fortune magazine included Gulden in its list of Businesspersons of the Year, highlighting the scale of the turnaround he had overseen.

~*~

Leadership at Adidas

🧩 Appointment during crisis. In late 2022 Adidas faced a series of challenges, including the termination of its lucrative Yeezy collaboration with Ye (Kanye West) after the artist’s antisemitic remarks, a move that left an estimated €1.2 billion gap in annual revenue and contributed to the group’s first net loss in decades, alongside heavy inventories of unsold Yeezy shoes. The Adidas supervisory board turned to Gulden, then chief executive of rival Puma, appointing him CEO with effect from 1 January 2023 and tasking him with reviving what observers described as a “bruised brand”.

🔧 Strategic reset and operating model. Gulden’s strategy at Adidas emphasised a return to sports performance and a break with what he characterised as a “culture of finding reasons not to do things”, seeking to reduce bureaucracy and increase the speed of decision-making. He flattened organisational hierarchies, reduced reliance on external consultants, devolved more authority to product and market teams and concentrated investment on core sports such as football, running and basketball, as well as selectively re-entering niche categories like cricket where the brand still enjoyed strong equity.

📱 Internal culture and communication. In parallel with strategic changes, Gulden sought to foster a more open internal culture, notably by giving his personal mobile number to Adidas’s approximately 60,000 employees and inviting them to contact him directly with ideas or concerns, a gesture he acknowledged some viewed as unusual but which he framed as necessary for leadership transparency. He also promoted more frequent communication between headquarters and regional teams and encouraged direct feedback from store staff, designers and athletes, aiming to shorten the distance between decision-makers and consumers.

💹 Financial and market impact. Adidas initially guided for a substantial loss in 2023, but under Gulden’s stewardship the company returned to profit within a year, helped by tighter inventory management and renewed demand for its core products. By late 2024 the group had raised its revenue and profit forecasts several times, and its share price had more than doubled from post-Yeezy lows; over Gulden’s first 14 months as CEO the stock rose by around 48 per cent at a time when listed rivals Nike and Puma were declining, strengthening investor confidence in the new strategy.

👟 Product focus and geographic strategy. Gulden’s Adidas placed renewed emphasis on timeless product franchises such as the Samba and Gazelle sneakers, which enjoyed a surge in global popularity, while stepping up marketing in regions such as North America where the brand sought to close the gap with competitors. At the same time he made revitalising the Chinese market a priority and balanced a renewed focus on wholesale partners with continued investment in Adidas’s own direct-to-consumer channels.

~*~

Compensation and board roles

💰 Executive compensation at Adidas. Gulden’s remuneration as Adidas CEO reflected both the scale of the role and the company’s performance targets. In 2024 his total compensation was reported at about €7.38 million, including a €3.61 million annual bonus, a figure around 20 per cent lower than the previous year’s €9.18 million package after changes to the long-term incentive scheme. On joining Adidas he was required to invest a significant portion of his initial compensation, reported at around €3.37 million in 2023, into Adidas shares, aligning his personal wealth closely with the group’s performance.

📈 Wealth and incentives. Prior to his move to Adidas, Gulden was among the higher-paid executives in the European apparel sector during his tenure at Puma, where salary and equity awards contributed to an estimated personal net worth in the low hundreds of millions of dollars by the mid-2020s. Analysts have noted that the structure of his incentive plans at Adidas, with substantial share-based elements, gives him strong financial motivation to sustain the company’s recovery.

📋 Board and advisory positions. Alongside his executive duties, Gulden has held a range of board roles, serving as chairman of Danish retail group Salling Group A/S and as a member of the supervisory board of German coffee and retail company Tchibo (through its parent maxingvest), while from 2014 to 2022 he sat on the board of Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund, linking his business activities back to his roots in professional football.

~*~

Personal life

🏠 Family and children. Gulden is married, and his wife comes from the Norwegian Pettersen family, which has produced several prominent athletes, reinforcing the sporting traditions in his household. The couple have three children, and their eldest son, Henrik, has followed his father into professional football, underlining the family’s multi-generational connection to the game.

🗣️ Languages and personality. Described by colleagues as affable and down-to-earth, Gulden is reported to speak Norwegian, German and English fluently, reflecting decades spent living and working in Norway, Germany and the United States. Profiles emphasise his continuing enthusiasm for sport in his spare time, portraying him as a “passionate sport player” who maintains an active lifestyle alongside his executive responsibilities.

🏃 Lifestyle and working habits. Accounts from within Adidas depict Gulden as a visibly present leader who often dresses in the company’s sportswear, participates in product testing, including trying out new sneaker prototypes on runs, and engages directly with design and development teams in discussions about performance and aesthetics. His preference for informal dress and close engagement with product has been cited as an extension of his sporting background and focus on functionality.

🤝 Approachability and philanthropy. Gulden’s decision to share his personal mobile number with all Adidas employees was widely noted as a symbol of his approachability and willingness to listen to ideas from all levels of the organisation. He has also supported philanthropic initiatives connected to sport and youth development, and when managing the sale of remaining Yeezy inventory he directed that a portion of the proceeds, reported at more than €100 million, be donated to organisations combating antisemitism and hate speech, combining financial pragmatism with a social message.

~*~

Controversies and challenges

⚠️ Management of the Yeezy fallout. Although he inherited the termination of Adidas’s relationship with Ye, Gulden was responsible for deciding how to deal with the large stock of unsold Yeezy footwear left in warehouses. Rather than write off the inventory entirely, he authorised phased releases of the shoes and pledged to donate a significant share of the proceeds to charities focused on fighting antisemitism and other forms of hate, a move that was broadly welcomed by campaigners while limiting the financial damage to Adidas.

🗨️ Comments on Ye and subsequent apology. In September 2023 Gulden attracted criticism after remarks in a media interview in which he said he did not believe Ye “meant what he said” and that the rapper was not “a bad person”, comments that some observers interpreted as playing down the seriousness of antisemitic statements. The Anti-Defamation League and other groups condemned the remarks, prompting Gulden to contact the ADL to apologise for what he later called an erroneous statement and to reiterate that ending the Yeezy partnership had been “absolutely the right” decision; Adidas issued public statements distancing the company from Ye’s comments and reaffirming its opposition to antisemitism.

🌏 Regional and strategic challenges. Beyond controversies, Gulden has faced structural challenges as he seeks to reposition Adidas in a competitive global market, including intense competition from local brands and shifting consumer sentiment in China, and an “uphill battle” to rebuild market share in North America, where the company has reorganised its management and increased marketing spend. Analysts have also debated the long-term implications of his decision to rebalance Adidas’s distribution mix by renewing ties with wholesale partners after a period in which the company prioritised direct-to-consumer channels.

🌱 Animal welfare and sustainability. In May 2025 Adidas announced that it would permanently stop using kangaroo leather for its football boots, following long-running campaigns by animal-welfare activists who criticised the practice. At a shareholder meeting Gulden personally confirmed that the company had ceased sourcing kangaroo skins for shoes, a change that brought Adidas into line with moves already taken by some competitors and was welcomed by campaigners as a victory for wildlife and a signal of growing attention to environmental, social and governance concerns in the sportswear industry.

📉 Ongoing risks and scrutiny. Commentators note that despite the strong initial phase of the Adidas turnaround, Gulden continues to operate in an environment of economic uncertainty, volatile consumer demand and rapid shifts in fashion and technology, leaving the company exposed to cyclical pressures and execution risk. Nevertheless, he has to date retained the confidence of the Adidas board and major shareholders, who broadly view him as a turnaround specialist capable of steering the business through further challenges.

~*~

Legacy and leadership style

🏆 Turnaround reputation and rarity as an ex-athlete CEO. Gulden is frequently characterised in business media as a turnaround expert whose experience at Puma and Adidas demonstrates an ability to restore momentum at troubled consumer brands while reconnecting them with core sports communities. He is also one of a relatively small number of large-company chief executives with a background in professional sport, a fact he has said informs his approach to leadership, teamwork and resilience more than any business school case study.

🌐 Global outlook and personal traits. Having been born in Switzerland, raised in Norway and spent substantial parts of his career in Germany and the United States, Gulden is widely described as a cosmopolitan leader comfortable operating across cultures and languages. Accounts from colleagues and journalists highlight his strong memory for names and faces, his self-deprecating humour and his preference for functional sportswear over formal attire, including a quip that the main difference between managing a football team and a global company is that he sometimes has to wear a suit and is “still not sure” he is doing it correctly. Supporters argue that this blend of competitiveness, informality and deep enthusiasm for product has made him an effective figurehead for sportswear brands aiming to balance performance credibility with lifestyle appeal.

~*~