BOULDER, Colo. (BRAIN) — Stages Cycling has hired Bernie Doering from Vista Outdoor. Doering will head marketing and sales for Stages Cycling's outdoor business, a new position for the company, which sells power meter cranks for bikes as well as stationary bikes for the fitness club market.
Doering was most recently interim president in charge of the Bell, Giro and Blackburn brands at Vista Outdoor, which bought those brands from BRG Sports this year. Before the Vista acquisition, Doering had been senior vice president of global sales at BRG Sports. Prior to that he held a variety of global leadership positions within Nike's sales and marketing department over a 20-plus-year tenure. He currently serves on the board of the Bicycle Product Suppliers Association.
Stages' CEO Jim Liggett told BRAIN on Friday that he's been friends with Doering for years. He said he's watched his career and was gratified that Stages has grown enough to attract Doering to the team.
"Bernie and I have been friends for almost 25 years. The story goes back to being neighbors. We’ve had a very long conversation through the years as friends and professionally. He’s been listening to me talk about Stages for the last six years. He’s been off doing big things and good at it. From time to time we might joke a bit about him coming to work for Stages, and he joked back that 'You’re not big enough.' He's a great fit for the next chapter of what we're trying to do."
Liggett said he was happy that Stages has grown enough to attract Doering, and is also in a place where it will benefit from his management experience.
"I’ve had the same management team in place since we started the company," Liggett said. "Things have gotten really busy here in a good way. It became clear in the last six months or so that to effectively manage our growth we needed to provide greater focus in our business. We had been managing our indoor and outdoor business with the same management. We were not doing as good a job as we needed to. But more importantly than that, we have a number of new initiatives for the future we’re investing in now. We’ve been talking about a structure that would better position us for the future."
"So we created the position of global VP of sales and marketing for Stages Cycling, which is our outdoor power meter business. We also have position of senior VP of global marketing and sales for indoor. We’ve created two positions."
In statement, Doering said, "I have been close to Stages Cycling since the launch of the power meter several years ago and have been very impressed by the Stages team and their innovation agenda," said Doering. "There is an incredible future ahead for power, training with power, data capture and technology in cycling. I am very excited to be part of this dynamic team."
