Interim Management & Project
Category Manager & Project Lead at Pon Bike Group
Category Manager & Project Lead at Pon Bike Group
After wrapping up at Urban Arrow I spent another 7 months at Pon Bike Group, in a dual role. As Interim Category Manager and Project Lead within the Global Procurement team, I was brought in to support the company’s ambitious growth plans in the post-COVID cycling boom. The focus was both on the present and the future: manage outsourcing complexity and help build new in-house capacity.
Pon Bike Group, after the acquisition of Cannondale in 2022, is the largest bicycle company in the world, and part of the Dutch family-owned conglomerate Pon Holdings. The group owns a portfolio of premium, well-known bicycle brands such as Cervélo, Gazelle, Kalkhoff, Union, Urban Arrow, and Santa Cruz.
Securing Supply to Match a Demand Surge
As Category Manager Outsourcing, I took ownership of commercial relations with three large assembly partners, in Lithuania, Greece and Portugal, covering 320,000 bikes in 2022. The Portuguese supplier was new and the ask was to get them set up for mass production, including getting the supplier approved, and managing all the other ramp up milestones until go-live. Besides assembly, coordinating the critical frames supply chain, mainly from Taiwan, was also part of my responsibilities.
In this role I’ve been able to keep the Pon Bike flow of frames and production going, at a time when demand for bikes was increasing sharply, allowing the Global Procurement Director to find a new, full-time team member.
Laying the Groundwork for Future Growth
At the same time, I got involved in Project Stork (Lithuania’s national bird), which was Pon’s strategic initiative to build a new factory in Lithuania, with an annual capacity of 600,000 bikes. While most of the experts were already selected to join the project, my role was to set up the governance and planning for the project, kick off the work and help the team to be successful. The project was completed in 2024 with the opening of the new facility in the Kedainiai Free Economic Zone. It is one of the largest investments ever done by Pon Bike and recognized as a great example of sustainable manufacturing and bringing new jobs and economic activity to an otherwise underdeveloped region.
More about:
Interim management | Projects