BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
High-end stylish cycling apparel company Vulpine, which recently celebrated its second birthday, has employed David Hemming, Head of Sales, formerly commercial manager of Team Sky at Rapha.
Hemming is a well known in the cycling world as one of the first elite British MTB athletes, having represented Great Britain aged 18 in the first ever Mountain Bike Worlds. He also has a pedigree in the cycling industry with brands such as Cannondale, Marin and of course Rapha, where he oversaw sales and commercial direction for the Team Sky project.
Vulpine founder Nick Hussey said: "Dave is a bit of a cycling legend, which is fun in itself. But it is his expertise, strategic approach to sales and passion for our brand that excited me most. Dave loves Vulpine and sees even more potential for us. I’ve been doing all sales and trade account handling up until now, which I’ve hardly managed at all. Now we’ve ramped up our production to keep up with demand we can be proactive and offer trade accounts far more support and experience. He’ll also run our digital sales team, helping improve everything we do on www.vulpine.cc"
Joining Hemming in April are Polly Farrington, Robin Godden and Lucia Boxall. Farrington Leaves Beyond Analysis as a management consultant to Visa Europe to become Strategic Analyst under Hemming at Vulpine. A keen road cyclist and distance runner, she will help make Vulpine more targeted and efficient company. Hussey went on to say: "I’ve been running Vulpine, particularly digital strategy, on instinct and passion for the last two years. That only gets us so far. Now with Polly we can use data insight to make us a far more professional business."
Godden comes from a professional photography background to support operations manager Jools Walker and head of design James Greig as General Assistant. While Boxall leaves the fashion world to assist production manager Isobelle Rudman with critical paths and sourcing.
"It’s not just excitement I feel, but huge relief. We are now purely restricted by time and skills, as sales grow beyond our ability to cope with them. Now I have a team of nine who can not only keep up, but grow us even faster!" Hussey said.
Vulpine is seemingly not content with its speedy rise, hinting that there’s more to come. Hussey said Vulpine’s future plans include "some really big ambitious stuff. I’m not going to elaborate!".
