Companies

Birkenstock welcomes new Managing Director for Southeast Asia and Down Under

Jul 19, 2024 Germany

The footwear company has appointed Evelyn Chua as Managing Director for Southeast Asia and Down Under. In this newly created role, she will be in charge of expanding the brand’s presence in the region

Chua, who will be based at the company’s regional headquarters in Singapore, will be responsible for expanding Birkenstock’s presence and positioning across all channels in a region that includes Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia, and New Zealand. She will report to Klaus Baumann, the company’s Chief Sales Officer.

“Southeast Asia is a region with a huge growth potential. With the additional capacity that we can allocate since the go-live of our new plant in Pasewalk in September 2023, we are now able to meet the needs of the Asian customers for our products. With a very strong online and offline retail experience, I am convinced that Evelyn Chua is the perfect leader to manage our presence in this very important region. Welcome aboard!”, commented Baumann.

With more than 15 years of experience in the retail industry across multiple product categories and channels, Evelyn is known for building strong relationships with all distributors and retail store partners, identifying opportunities, planning and executing concrete plans, and managing talent.

Most notably, she headed up the Singapore and Myanmar region for Hong Kong-based luxury goods retailer DFS Venture for six years and was Chief Commercial Officer of Synagie, which operates over 1000 e-stores across 7 markets in Southeast Asia for 600 brand partners, including Nike, Estee Lauder and L’Oréal, from 2022 to date.

“While expanding our presence online, I want to maintain a strong relationship with our distributors, who have been instrumental in our growth. We can help them to develop their assortment strategy, but we want, as well, to accelerate our own business by opening new stores. We also need to ensure that our stores offer the same experience to our clients”, said Evelyn Chua. “Our brand enjoys a strong awareness in the region. I am convinced that its margin for growth is still enormous”, she concluded.

Image Credits: prnewswire.com

Asia Pacific Germany Birkenstock Companies Footwear Management