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Globe CEO Matt Hill Discusses Industry Opportunities & Threats, Sale Of Dwindle + More

We sat down with Globe CEO Matt Hill to discuss the threats and opportunities facing our industry at present. Matt talks about the divesture of Dwindle to Highline, he talks about business during the COVID-19 era and also reflects on what he’d tell the Matt Hill of 2015 with the benefit of hindsight. Interview by SOURCE Editor, Harry Mitchell Thompson.

2017 Matt Hill

Matt, for those of our readers who don’t know your story, please could you give us a summary of how you came to your current position of CEO at Globe.
Globe was originally founded by my two older brothers Stephen and Peter Hill in the mid-80s as a skateboard distribution company for Australia. We had all grown up skateboarding, and the guys barely out of their teens saw an opportunity to import skateboards into the Australian market from the USA and went for it. The business quickly grew and pretty soon we had expanded into apparel, then footwear and then into Europe and ultimately the USA which I came over to help set up in the mid-90s and where I have been based since. By the early 2000s we had grown significantly and were operating around the world and had the chance to take the company public. We did that, then experimented with some short term, outside CEOs that didn’t quite integrate into the culture of the company and ultimately we realized one of us needed to do the job. It was important to us that one of us oversaw the balance between culture, core values, and the expansion, change and growth that would be required to always adapt over the long term. In 2004 I said I would do it for a few years, and here we are 16 years later. Peter and Stephen have never stopped being involved at an executive board level and often drive key growth projects. The balance works well and has helped us get through ups and downs for over three decades!

This year marks 35 years of being in business and 25 years of Globe. Let’s leave chat of COVID for later; how has the business landscape evolved since our last catchup for your 30 year anniversary? If you could give 2015 Matt Hill some 2020 insight, what would it be?
When we recapped and looked back on our history at that 30 year mark in 2015, we were really struck by how a real distinction of our company vs a lot of boardsports companies that had come and gone was how we had evolved. We had maintained a through line and stayed true to skate over three decades but had at the same time diversified into different markets like surf, streetwear, workwear and into different regions around the world and operated in a wide variety of distribution channels.

Those characteristics have remained true over the last five years. Since we last spoke we had seen skate hardgoods decline and now we see our Globe skateboard sales come charging back over the last 12 months. We have had our workwear brand FXD dominate in Australia and be expanded into Europe and North America. We’ve also launched new brands like Impala which is a female oriented multi-discipline skate brand. o we’ve kept on the same path and looked to adopt and diversify our brand mix, customer base we sell to and distribution channels to move with the times.

Clearly in the last five years the biggest change has been the change to a digital marketplace. If I was giving insights to someone five years ago with the benefit of being here now, I would say be prepared to not just sell online but to have your brands transformed to a complete digital program from consumer communication, retail account support, marketing and distribution channels. All our newer programs that have been launched in the last five years have adopted that philosophy and have really flourished. Impala is a prime example that was born in a purely digital time and has grown organically in that sphere and as such has a genuine contact with its customer base that is perfect for the demographic it sells to and the platforms to communicate today.

Last year you sold Dwindle to Highline. Can you explain the current crop of brands at the company, how each brand works in relation to your other brands and why last year was the right time to part with Dwindle? How has the sale of Dwindle affected production of Globe’s skate hard goods?
The sale to Dwindle was mostly to streamline our brand mix and the number of brands we had and to focus in on Globe skate hardgoods as our main play in the skate product category. Globe has always had scale as a single large skateboard brand while Dwindle was made up of a number of smaller skate hardgoods brands. We had been looking to have globally relevant single scale brands in each product category and market and so divesting of Dwindle made sense, particularly since the division and people would go to a good business in Highline that was attracted to the idea of a mix of multiple core brands to complement their brand assortment.

We have always had our own factory in China, making the best premium skateboards in the world and nothing has changed there. Dwindle still makes their boards there also, so as far as production of skateboards goes, we are unaffected and still have ownership and exclusive access to the highest quality, most stable supply chain for skateboards in the world and continue to invest and look to innovate through that production facility.

So post the Dwindle transaction we are left with four core global brands operating in different segments all now operating in Europe and the other regions.

– Globe in the skate/surf apparel, footwear and skateboard market
– Salty Crew operating in the surf, fish, dive and sail apparel market
– Impala operating in the female quad roller, inline and skateboard market
– FXD operating in the workwear apparel and boot market

All these brands have much further global scale potential to grow from where they are today and can do so in all regions, giving us an awesome mix of both different brand growth but also a good even mix of product categories between apparel, footwear and skateboards.

Can you give us a summary of how COVID affected business and where you’re currently at with regards to opportunities and threats arising from the current situation
We can say that in Europe, as we don’t have a summer drop, business was not too badly affected as we delivered to all clients before the lock down mid-march and when stores reopened sell-through was strong. Clients moved through our products and are ready for Fall deliveries. Our supply chain has been very reliable and so we have seen good opportunities as some competitors have faced challenges in those areas. We have found that our hardgoods products like Impala and Globe have been extremely popular in the COVID era as they are great individual socially distanced activities that can still be social, that people can do at home, in their own neighbourhood or local community. We expect to see that continue for the coming period.

Meanwhile, as to threats, it is simply the uncertainty in the world and the virus. The business needs to find the balance between long term planning and investing in the future while taking short term views of where opportunities are today and making sure we run hard and fast at those and support our retailers with adaptive programs and flexibility where we can!

How has your office culture changed and how do you see things working moving forward in this area?
In all our regions our offices have always been social gathering places where we have tried to encourage the interests of our staff and embody the culture of our brands. We always pushed for vibrant interactive creative environments. Since COVID this has been tough as we have taken a very serious and strict approach to a safe workplace looking to mitigate the spread of the virus wherever we can which most often involves reducing human contact and crossover. So now we have that safe platform established, we are looking to add back the more social components within those new constraints. It’s not easy but we have a creative staff base, so it’s up to all of us to find the ways to do it!

Knowing both the distribution and brand side to the industry, what do you see as the future of boardsports retail? How does the future look for core surf/skate retailers and how do brands, distributors and retailers work together in harmony?
Once we get through the economic shock of COVID which will be extremely tough on independent retailers, COVID may mean good opportunities for independent, true destination, non-mall based core retailers. We are seeing that retailers around the world who are truly core and have a dedicated customer base are doing better than mall-based stores, and have new customers coming for their specific needs. It may well be that this is an opportunity for the return of the independent core surf/skate retailer which would be awesome as they are the lifeblood of the industry. We have always looked to support these original retailers in all ways we can and we will continue to keep them as a priority for our company and brands.