SEATTLE, WA (BRAIN)—Raleigh America has restructured its IBD sales team to better respond to the regional needs of its dealers.
At Raleigh America’s dealer meeting in July, president Steve Meineke said, “Raleigh will help facilitate the connection between the local rider, the local dealer, and local events. This is our mission heading into 2012 and beyond.”
To deepen it connections on a regional and local level, the sales team was restructured this month as Raleigh East and Raleigh West. Two new senior sales management positions–east and west sales directors–were created to manage the organization. George Simone and Jim Holleman have been promoted to east and west coast sales directors respectively.
“Our goal is to move our sales leadership out of the office and into the field, where the action is happening. We need to be able to make decisions quickly, and to understand the specific needs of different markets. Therefore we needed senior management in the field with a broader amount of latitude to make decisions quickly with a strong understanding of their markets,” Meineke said. “We are fortunate that we already had two great leaders in the organization in George and Jim who can take on this responsibility and push the Raleigh brand to the next level.”
Simone previously served as Raleigh’s regional manager for the East Coast and has been in the bicycle industry for over 30 years. He has worked in virtually every aspect of the industry including ownership of a retail bicycle business and as a road sales representative in addition to holding various management positions both in sales and business development.
Holleman joined Raleigh America in May 2011 as west region sales manager. Prior to this Holleman was the U.S. director of sales for Look Cycle USA for three years. He also spent 20-plus years in the winter sports industry with Salomon North America in a variety of sales and management capacities. Additionally he was the national sales manager for Time Sport USA in the early '90s.
Raleigh subsequently announced the return of David Hull in the position as sales operations manager for IBD. He has worked the in the commercial fitness industry for the past three years. He was previously a customer service manager for Raleigh until 2008, and had been with the company for 13 years. Hull has worked at all levels of the bicycle world from retail sales to bicycle tour leader. He has a keen interest in issues of bicycle advocacy, and has attended two Bike Summits in Washington, D.C. as a company representative.
As part of this restructuring, Rickey Strawn has left Raleigh America.
