YORK ATHLETICS BOLSTERS EXECUTIVE TEAM, BOARD

York Athletics Mfg., a third-generation independently-owned footwear brand, has named Greg Segel as vice president of e-commerce and Greg Cordeiro as head of footwear design and development. The new executives will help the company continue its impressive growth.

As the new vice president of e-commerce, Segel will focus on driving traffic to both elevate the brand and drive sales and profitability online. Prior to joining York Athletics, Segel spent nearly seven years at ’47 Brand, another family-owned company, where he helped transform the Boston-based retailer into a multi-million-dollar omnichannel brand.

“I see a lot of similarities between York Athletics and ’47 Brand,” said Segel. “They are both built on an authentic community. The York team truly believes that hustle, self-expression, and community are worth the fight. This message resonates because it is real and at the core of who this team is. I am excited to now be a part of the York team.”

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And, Cordeiro will be taking the reins of York Athletics’ footwear creative direction, design, and development, as well as influencing product marketing. Cordeiro has a long history as both a designer and an entrepreneur. He acts as head of footwear design at Huckberry and was previously a designer at Clarks and BBC International, which is a footwear design agency that works with clients like Polo Ralph Lauren, Teva, Cole Haan, and more.

“York Athletics has been so successful because they’ve built such a great product,” said Cordeiro. “It’s an exceptional performance training shoe that has a great minimalist design. I am thrilled to be building off of this and helping to take YORK into the next chapter of its story.”

Segel and Cordeiro are the newest members of the York Athletics leadership team. They join CEO Mark McGarry, vice president of operations Dan McAuliffe, and vice president of marketing Tami Kirlis.

The company also recently announced that Travis York was named executive chairman of its board of directors, and the company added Curtis Charles to its board.

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York co-founded York Athletics in 2016 and since then has played a strategic role in growing the company. As executive chairman, York, who is also CEO of York Creative Collective, will be more involved in the day-to-day operations with a focus on brand and performance marketing working closely alongside CEO and co-founder Mark McGarry to scale the business.

“We have successfully completed the first chapter of York Athletics’ story, which was building an end-to-end D2C footwear brand on our terms,” York said. “As we enter the next chapter, our attention is turning to scale and focusing on more ways to bring our shoes to the public. That includes a greater focus on omnichannel evolution through marketplaces as well as wholesale, which is why I am so thrilled with the team we’re putting together to chase down these new goals. Their work will complement nicely what our team has been doing since day one: building an unbelievable product and a brand people want to be part of.”

Joining York on the York Athletics board is Curtis Charles, managing partner and CEO of FFB Collaboration, a full-service, cultural strategy agency that helps companies drive wholesale sales to a variety of strategic retail partners as well as understand the youth and minority consumer. Prior to running FFB Collaboration, Charles spent 11 years at Puma Group, most recently as senior vice president of North America and head of the wholesale division. He will be bringing that experience in wholesale to the company.

“There are many D2C footwear brands but York stood out to me because of the quality, the rich history of the family and the clear point of difference that York has by focusing on one of the major problems in footwear today, which is fit,” added Charles. “As they enter this next chapter, I am looking forward to helping them pick the right partners and drive those strategic relationships.”

These key board additions are just the latest in a series of momentum for York Athletics, which saw a strong fourth quarter. In addition to 49 percent year-over-year gross revenue growth in the fourth quarter, the company also launched the York Fit Finder, a three-dimensional foot measurement tool designed to find a user’s shoe size by using the camera on their phone or tablet. Unlike other footwear fitting technologies, the York Fit Finder simulates your foot entry and position inside the shoe.

“The Fit Finder launch solidified York Athletics reputation as a footwear brand obsessed with fit, which is why we’ve become the footwear brand for trainers,” commented McGarry. “It also showcases that as much as York Athletics is a footwear brand, it is also a technology company. This is a differentiator that has helped us attract star talent like Curtis, Greg, and Greg and will play a huge role in our next chapter as a company.”