Luke Edgar

I have taken a role as Advisor to help long time former colleagues and their amazing goal of disrupting the use of single use batteries, with over 17M tons a year ending up in landfills or incinerators.

As a nimble, entrepreneurial-minded Sales Generator within an industry-disrupting brand, I was tasked with building, leading, and managing a sales team to accomplish remarkably aggressive large revenue goals with very specific margin targets, inherited a flawed go-to-market strategy and company culture. Thoughtfully went direct with 7 domestic distributors while protecting the revenue, focusing on strategic distribution expansion, building never-before-seen win-win promotional events, and training events. Turned a broken distribution model in 2014 doing $100M+ to the brand’s high point in 2021 at over $840M; strategically grew tiered doors from 1K to 8K as well as oversaw the grocery expansion to over 6K store points. Expertise Reflects: Sales Organization Ramp: Built the sales team to over 60+ key account and channel sales managers, internal sales, coop, and training support, as well as a large, direct field sales team of retail account, territory, and regional managers guiding the company’s path to becoming the #2 grill brand in the world. Strategic Sales: Exceeded revenue targets, even within unstable market conditions and supply chain fluctuations. Keen awareness of market and consumer behavior is reflected by being in the market and using trend analysis and market research to drive product, demand creation, and go-to-market direction. Brand Building: Orchestrated a brand-building strategy that made Traeger evangelists out of the front-line retail army. Disruptive, we refused to target the 50+-year-old bbqer like all the competition while embracing 30-year heritage. Oversaw go-to-market strategy until we went public in 2021, winning dozens of Vendor awards. Relationship Cultivation: Found win-win solutions to meet the company and retail partner goals and a transparent up-front style, creating trust and long-term partnerships. We hired highly capable sales teams who built relationships, which helped us weather many storms, none more than in 2020.

Analyzed the independent rep model profitability (1099 Commissioned Sales Rep) vs employee direct sales reps; conceived and executed a shift to an internal sales team, developing an organizational structure that supported regional, categorical, and distribution channel needs and opportunities leading to a sizable ROI. Rolled out a phased approach to territory management hiring Territory Managers for Western and Southern Territories first while eliminating the least impactful domestic distributors, next building out the Midwest Territories and keeping only 2 of the best distributors. The final stage was building out the east coast and eventually buying out our final two largest domestic distributors (2020), ensuring a smooth transition.

Barebones Living is a for profit brand with a humanitarian heart. Based around food and shelter, with garden and outdoor products that are vintage inspired, but made with the latest technology and materialization. Our founder Robert also founded Goal Zero. During my 10 months we were able to establish solid distribution and direction for the garden category. The outdoor products were more limited but a renewed focus from Robert, now that he has sold Goal Zero, will add more products to this category so the brand can be more meaningful to outdoor retailers. In the end, I realized as much as I believe in the brand, the team and products, it was still a year or two away from needing someone with my experience. I will enjoy watching this brand continue to grow.

Recruited by Bob McKnight, Chairman of the Board and Bernard Mariette, CEO, I facilitated the integration of Rossignol and support all the snowboard efforts/products within the group. Driving US sales growth for Rossignol and Roxy Snowboards, I hired new creative director to drive Rossignol’s snowboard graphics from Park City resulting in increased brand expansion, supported the launch of DC brand into snowboards, facilitating factory options, and played a key role in re-branding Rossignol.

I helped to realign the brand to be a true player within a highly competitive marketplace, leveraging relationships and expanding into new lifestyle and mall distribution, exploding sales by 33%, while reorganizing and elevating sales team make up.

Sales & Brand Director | 1998 – 2001 Director of Sales | 1996 – 1998 Account Relations Manager | 1994 – 1996 NW & National Snowboard Shop Internal Sales Representative | 1992 – 1994 Internship | 1992 Started at the ground floor as an intern but quickly earned a spot within a small team for snowboards (as the brand was a ski brand). My passion for snowboarding was infectious, and soon we attracted higher-quality staff and team riders. Combined with a strong focus on retailers, influence on the product, graphics, brand extensions and sales direction, we quietly moved from outside the top 10 SB brands (in the 90’s there were dozens if not hundreds) into the #2 position, which we maintained my final 5 years with the brand. I guided 4 product category managers, developing and launching helmet and backcountry snowboarding collections, oversaw and directed all marketing functions, selected, and placed A level well respected snowboard reps, many who worked with me after K2. I helped to secure a presence in 95% of targeted specialty, regional, and national accounts, and oversaw industry reaction to factory move from US to China messaging and strategy reducing sales impact even with competition marketing against us resulting in continued growth and massive margin improvement.