POZZOLEONE, Italy (BRAIN)—Fizik has hired endurance racing legend Nat Ross in the newly created position of brand specialist for the U.S. retail channel.
The Golden, Colorado-based Ross will continue to cultivate his marathon prowess crossing the continent to educate the IBD and promote every facet of the Fizik brand.
“With a resume that encompasses teaching, coaching, professional commentary and bike fitting in additional to his athletic accomplishments, there wasn’t a more befitting candidate to fill the role as Fizik brand expert and communication specialist to the retail channel,” said George Eubanks, sales manager of Highway Two, Fizik's U.S. subsidiary.
Ross’s first endurance mission will be to introduce Fizik's new Spine Concept to retailers. Spine Concept, developed by Fizik in conjunction with a team of German physiologists and the Italian-based Lab3 (www.lab3cube.com), matches the rider to three distinct saddle shapes based on spine flexibility.
“I’ve spent a significant part of my life in the saddle as an endurance racer, and this is a befitting next step in my career," Ross said. "It seems my endurance days though are not yet over and happy to be involved with such a prestigious brand as Fizik.”
Ross will kick-start his new role with Fizik with visits to dealers in Orange County, Salt Lake City and Denver. He’ll then travel to the Pozzoleone, Italy factory for a full immersion program where he will enhance his brand knowledge with an experiential education program, learning and participating in each and every step of the Fizik manufacturing process.
In additional to championing Spine Concept, Ross will work to improve and integrate merchandising development, sales promotion, and retailer and rep training and demonstrations. He’ll work in unison with Fizik's sales and marketing teams to not only tout the message but to be the conduit to collecting feedback from the cycling market’s most influential segment, the retailer.
“We collect a lot of data from our professional athletes and teams,” said Fizik’s marketing manager Suzette Ayotte. But this is only one population in the broader sense of end users. We want to collect data directly from the IBD and from their respective VIPs and feed that info directly to our U.S. and European marketing and product teams. Our reps and retailers deserve to know that feedback is heard and communicated and Nat will be that guy.”
Fi’zi:k’s brand director Nicola Rosin adds, “Over the last year we’ve been experimenting with this position in Italy and it has been highly successful. We’re excited to add Nat Ross to our sales and marketing team in what is one of most important, influential and successful markets, the United States.”
