Willy Bogner GmbH, the German luxury sportswear brand best known for its alpine heritage and technical outerwear, has appointed former Puma chief executive Arne Freundt as its new CEO, effective June 1. The appointment marks a significant escalation in the brand’s ambitions, bringing in an executive with deep experience in scaling sportswear brands across international markets.
The brand has already taken preliminary steps in this direction. A recent collaboration with Moncler raised Bogner’s profile in the luxury outerwear category, and a renewed focus on women’s technical apparel has driven growth in the DACH region. Freundt’s experience in building lifestyle-oriented sportswear at Puma — particularly his work on the brand’s collaboration strategy with celebrities and designers — suggests that Bogner may pursue a similar model of high-profile partnerships to raise its international visibility.
The appointment comes at a moment of flux in the broader luxury sportswear market. Brands that successfully navigated the post-pandemic boom are now facing a normalization of demand, and the winners will be those with clear identities and disciplined distribution. Freundt’s mandate at Bogner is to make the brand relevant beyond the ski lift without losing the precision that made it essential there in the first place — a balance that will test the full extent of his experience in the industry’s most competitive segment.
For Bogner, which has long occupied a specific niche at the intersection of technical performance and luxury status — its ski suits are ubiquitous in St. Moritz, its bombers are spotted courtside at European tennis tournaments — the Freundt appointment signals a desire to broaden its customer base without diluting its heritage. The brand has been owned by the Bogner family for 95 years, and the decision to appoint an outside CEO for the first time is widely read as a sign that the family is preparing for a more aggressive growth phase, potentially including an eventual IPO.
Bogner’s market position is distinctive but narrow. Its core customer — the affluent skier who values both performance and appearance — provides a stable revenue base but limits the brand’s addressable market. Freundt’s task will be to extend Bogner’s relevance into categories and geographies where the brand currently has minimal presence: beyond alpine sports into everyday luxury sportswear, beyond Europe into North America and Asia.
Freundt arrives at Bogner after a tenure at Puma that saw him navigate the Herzogenaurach-based brand through a period of significant market turbulence, including supply chain disruptions, shifting consumer preferences, and the ongoing realignment of the global sportswear market. He left Puma in late 2025 after four years as CEO, during which he oversaw the brand’s expansion into lifestyle categories and its push into direct-to-consumer distribution.
