Search Mandate
In 2016, Noto Group was engaged by the board of competitive swimwear company arena to recruit a General Manager for its U.S. market. The brand was well established in Europe, where it is headquartered, but growth in the U.S. had been missing expectations. The new GM would report to the global CEO, and be charged to successfully operate and grow the U.S. subsidiary in line with worldwide business goals. This meant finding someone who could adapt global strategy to make waves in the U.S. region.
The U.S. GM needed an entrepreneurial drive to match the visionary arena spirit, whose bold ethos was sparked by Mark Spitz’s record-setting seven gold-medal wins in 1972. The ideal candidate would architect and activate U.S. sales and customer engagement platforms, tied to worldwide strategy and distribution goals across marketing, pricing, product, and supply chain functions.
It was also imperative for the U.S. leader to execute all this by building and inspiring a comparatively small team that would deliver ongoing, consistent success within the global business context.
“The Noto team is good at staying in touch and bringing people together. I recently attended an event they co-hosted where you could really learn something from interacting with other leaders dealing with similar issues.”
--Mark Pinger, U.S. General Manager, arena
Our Approach
After aligning search parameters with arena’s business values and needs, Noto Group swiftly cultivated uniquely qualified candidates from its established network. An important question for the board was whether someone coming from a large company could thrive in a smaller environment, and Noto Group kept this concern central in its work, ensuring that it was fully explored with final candidates.
As a result of Noto Group’s responsiveness to hiring cycle feedback and clear ongoing counsel, the role was filled in less than three months. Mark Pinger, a former Olympic medalist in freestyle swimming, demonstrated to owners that he brought the right mix of industry expertise and experience leading smaller business units within larger brands to succeed.
Pinger appreciated the balance of professional rigor and human touch that Noto Group displayed throughout the recruitment process. The in-depth conversations the recruiter facilitated ultimately led him to combine his lifelong passion for swimming with his career goals in service of a brand he’d been enthusiastic about since childhood.
It’s paid dividends, professionally and personally. “Something you get at a smaller company is that, when we succeed, everyone feels a sense of ownership, because they were personally part of it,” Pinger said after arena’s strongest growth in 2022 was in the U.S. region, where revenue rose 54% over 2021.
Results
The company’s U.S. business has grown close to 400% since Pinger took his role. Customer insights and sales strategies he’s implemented in the U.S. have proven successful in Europe as well, helping expand the U.S. GM’s influence within the global arena leadership team — and the success of the business overall.
Pinger has also partnered with Noto Group several times over the years to recruit other U.S. arena leaders. For him, the mix of personal and professional—never just transactional—stands out as Noto Group’s strongest trait. In particular, he calls out the extension of a hands-on approach beyond recruitment.
“The Noto team is good at staying in touch and bringing people together. I recently attended an event they co-hosted where you could really learn something by interacting with other leaders dealing with similar issues.”
To him, this is just one more example of how Noto Group works to support his career for the long haul, while helping take arena to new heights.
