EXCLUSIVE: Ecco Names Former Reebok Exec Neal Taylor as CEO of Its Americas Business
Stephen Garner
Senior Editor
Ecco has new leadership in the Americas.
The Danish footwear and leather company has named Neal Taylor as its new chief executive officer of the region.
Taylor joins the company from Hanesbrands where he most recently served as senior vice president of global commercial. Prior to that, he spent 16 years at Reebok when it was owned by Adidas. In his last role at Reebok, he helped lead the divestiture of the brand to its current owner, Authentic Brands Group.
While at Reebok, Taylor also held the roles of global vice president of international business development, vice president of global brand operations and VP of U.S. wholesale, among others. Taylor also held roles at Red Bull and sports marketing agency WPP.
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In an exclusive interview with FN, Taylor said his mandate for his new role will be working to unlock the potential of the brand in the U.S.
“Ecco is a family-owned legacy business that has this unique angle in terms of end-to-end go-to market products, so it’s about communicating that to the customer here,” Taylor maintained. “You know, we have stores and an e-commerce presence both in the U.S. and Canada as well as key wholesale partners. So, it’s about trying to unlock that potential of this great product that hasn’t reached its full potential within the U.S. and North America.”
As for his mindset when it comes to product innovation – a hot button topic in the industry right now – Taylor said that the company always focused on it. “Ecco is known for its product down to the tanneries and factories we own,” he said. “There’s a very core DNA that some consumers know Ecco for, and that’s what we have to innovate within.”
The news comes after the company spoke with FN in August last year about how it planned to raise brand awareness in North America. At the time, chief marketing officer Ezra Martin described Ecco as “the best shoe you’ve never heard of.”
“We’ve got less than 2 percent brand awareness in the U.S.,” said Martin, who joined the company in April 2024. “So, what I’m really trying to do — and what the rest of the team here is trying to do — is raise brand awareness.”
Other recent hires last year were TikTok veteran Zeynep Gorman, who joined Ecco as its e-commerce director for the Americas in March 2024 and The Rockport Company former vice president Seth Heckman joined as chief financial officer for Ecco Americas in April last year. Eastman Footwear Group executive Dan Leonardi joined as head of wholesale for Americas in June.
This month, Ecco launched its spring 2025 campaign starring eternal “It-girl” Chloë Sevigny. According to the company, Sevigny chose the Ecco designs that most spoke to her playful sense of style for this shoot.
She wore a new season eggshell-colored pair of the head-turning Biom C-Trail lace-up ballerina sneakers, which she’s worn to trek the streets of New York while off-duty. The trendy sneaker was designed in collaboration with Ecco’s long-term creative partner Natacha Ramsay-Levi, and also comes in all-black.
