Craig Reingold
Managing Director
Craig Reingold is a Retail, Consumer Packaged Goods, and Footwear Executive with a career of demonstrated success from startup and scaleup operations, carveouts, acquisition due diligence, and post-merger integrations, to serving as President of Honeywell Safety & Productivity Solutions, Wolverine Worldwide (Sperry Top-Sider), and Toms. Throughout his career, he has managed up to 600 employees, consistently increased revenue, maximized his company’s profitability, and built market share (both domestically and internationally) in complex and competitive business climates.
Mr. Reingold has led organizations through strategic key-to-the-mission initiatives in stable and unstable environments, from navigating the complexities of a successful business carveout, acquisition strategy, and execution to fostering integration synergies. Craig exhibits a tenacity to develop new opportunities, secure or restore customer loyalty, and forge long-term relationships with external and internal business partners that fortify, drive, and sustain results.
Career History
Craig served as the President of Honeywell’s Retail Division. He was recruited and charged by the President and CEO to initiate a business transformation to maintain Honeywell’s standards. In the first 6 months, he restructured 80% of the leadership team, including roles and responsibilities, and developed a playbook to execute. Once completed, Craig worked with the team to revamp supply chain, manufacturing, and market penetration methodologies. He gained buy-in from strategic accounts and continued fostering strong consumer connections with a differentiated brand portfolio. These efforts grew CAGR by 14% and OI from -5% to +15% over three years. This (and other initiatives he led) resulted in the division becoming an attractive takeover target. He was a crucial leader in the successful carveout from Honeywell, where he partnered with investment bankers and led the acquisition process, which resulted in its sale to Rocky Brands for a premium EBITDA.
Before Honeywell, Mr. Reingold was the General Manager of Americas for TOMS Shoes. Founder Blake Mycoskie recruited him to stabilize the business and build long-term growth strategies. Craig concentrated on brand relevance, consumer messaging, distribution strategy, product design, and forecasting. Going forward, he brought sales in-house, evolved account management, renegotiated/replaced unproductive accounts, and developed and instituted new forecasting and eCommerce initiatives. This stabilized and grew sales and reduced inventory (increasing turn by 20%) in the first year. This stabilized income streams as brand relevance was restored.
Before his time with TOMS Shoes, Craig served as the Global Brand President for Wolverine Worldwide’s Sperry Top-Sider brand. He led a turnaround after years of revenue and margin erosion, building a new mission, vision, and growth strategy based on expansion into a lifestyle brand for a $16B segment. He developed a consumer-centric focus and led manufacturing, distribution, product segmentation, customer engagement, and product development. Mr. Reingold alsodesigned and led direct-to-consumer eCommerce, and the successful cost effective buildout of over 50 specialty retail stores. This effort achieved 24% CAGR ($43M to $600M with pretax profit growth at 28% CAGR for 12 years. Sperry became an attractive takeover target, leading to two acquisition events: Payless in 2008 and Wolverine Worldwide in 2012. In addition, they achieved #2 men’s and #3 women’s casual brand in the US and were named “Brand of the Year” two years in a row.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Reingold served as the Vice President of Sales for Ariat International (an Equestrian athletic brand) and Keds Corporation, where he led sales/marketing optimization and distribution model improvement efforts that fueled immense growth in CAGR for both companies.
Education
Craig earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Business from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, where he played D3 basketball. He was the President of the Sigma Chi fraternity in his senior year.
Boards and Professional Affiliations
Craig serves as an Advisor reporting to the COO and co-founders and THE KICKS FACTORY, LOS ANGELES, Co-founded by Abhi Som and Omar Bailey, who ran the innovation lab for Yeezy & Adidas (2019-2022). The Kicks Factory is a footwear innovation lab in the arts district of LA, servicing large and emerging brands, celebrities, influencers in the footwear and sneaker space. Craig is responsible for collaboratively setting strategy, attending Advisory Board, scheduling and attending strategic partner meetings, and driving new business partnerships with potential customers/partners
Mr. Reingold served as a member of the Huron Capital Board of a Private Equity funded Hosiery Company from 2015 to 2018 and was an advisor on the Board of Earth Shoes in Waltham, MA, in September 2016.
Personal
Mr. Reingold resides in Lexington, MA, with his wife and has two daughters. He is an Eagle Scout, has coached girls’ basketball and softball, and even played basketball in Europe after graduating college. He has a distinct love for traveling.