Billabong announces that it has appointed Mr. Neil Fiske as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Billabong. Neil brings a strong combination of world-class strategy and successful execution experience as a CEO in retail and the active outdoor category. Neil is a passionate outdoorsman with a proven record of turnarounds and is very enthusiastic about the Billabong portfolio of brands. Neil has spent 24 years in the consumer and retail industry as an operator, consultant and investor. He was most recently an Industry Partner to Canadian private equity firm Onex, where he acted as a senior advisor focused on retail.
Prior to this, Neil was CEO of Eddie Bauer, where he successfully turned the company from a struggling business to a revitalized brand under private equity ownership. While at Eddie Bauer Neil conceived and launched the highly successful First Ascent line of expedition gear and returned the company to its outdoor heritage. From 2003 to 2007, Neil served as the CEO of Bath and Body Works, a division of NYSE listed Limited Brands where he reversed 26 months of negative same store sales within three months of joining, growing the revenues of the company from US$1.8 billion to US$2.5 billion in just over four years.
From 1989 to 2003 Neil worked at the Boston Consulting Group, where he was a Partner in the Consumer and Retail Practice and worked for six years with Les Wexner on brand building at Limited Brands. Neil received a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School and a B.A. in Political Economy from Williams College.
