James Malaguez Email & Phone Number

United States

Pure Fishing is the largest fishing equipment company in the world, with established presence in more than 100 countries through iconic brands like Penn, Abu Garcia, Berkley, Ugly Stik, Hardy, and Shakespeare.My journey with Pure Fishing started during its spinoff from Newell Brands, when entire teams and capabilities needed to be stood up so Pure Fishing could operate as a standalone business (then on part of Sycamore Partners private equity portfolio).Today, as the head of business development I lead multiple work streams seeking to grow market share and/or improve efficiencies through consumer insights, innovation, strategic partnerships, customer collaboration, and new acquisitions.

United States

United States

Charlotte, North Carolina Area

Leading a special project team responsible for redefining brand strategy for the company’s Outdoor Apparel business, including the brands Coleman, Marmot and ExOfficio. Objective is to present a POV with business recommendations to Sr. Leadership on:▶ New brand positioning, portfolio architecture, innovation focus areas and communications strategy for core apparel business - seeking to boost brand awareness & consideration by establishing a meaningful brand purpose with consistent execution.▶ Opportunity to extend brands into adjacent spaces: defined by consumers’ perception of the brands and their right to play in different categories, competitive landscape assessment, value proposition, design guidance, price positioning, distribution strategy and financial scenarios.

Charlotte, North Carolina Area

Head of global category development for Power Tool Accessories. Primary areas of responsibility included global category strategy, new product roadmap, regional business development support, and product launch/commercialization strategy. Key accomplishments:▶ Developed and launched an innovative platform of diamond metalworking abrasives. This new-to-the-world technology offered disruptive benefits over industry leading products, and poised the company to successfully enter the global abrasives category.▶ Through in-depth market assessment, optimized portfolio architectures and go-to-market strategy at a country-level, generating high and immediate impact in business growth.▶ Integrated the Asian product management team into the corporate innovation agenda / work streams, resulting in significant improvements in brand and portfolio consistency, as well as better leverage of business resources.▶ Introduced new tools to holistically evaluate market opportunities and help allocating resources more sharply, resulting in a product roadmap of bigger projects with greater alignment with the corporate strategy.

Charlotte, North Carolina Area

Head of PTA-Drilling SBU in LATAM. Primary areas of responsibility included program management, category P&L, consumer & market insights, pricing, product innovation, promotional activity, and aggregate demand planning. Key accomplishments:▶ Based on consumer and market insights, created and implemented several product innovation programs fully integrated with commercialization. Business grew 50% in the time frame, with a 600bps expansion in contribution margin.▶ Developed an integrated business plan to expand market share in South America, with yearly incremental revenues projected at $20M+. The planning model was considered a best practice by the corporate leadership, and later implemented in other parts of the organization.▶ Developed and launched a new merchandising system that disrupted category merchandising in the marketplace. This new award-winning program generated $15M in annual sales and helped consolidating the company’s #1 market share position.▶ Led multiple cross-functional sourcing/design/productivity initiatives that resulted in more than $4M in savings.

Brazil

Management of the Industrial Cutting Tools portfolio in LATAM with focus on metalworking manufacturing verticals. Primary areas of responsibility included market research, technical development, strategic pricing, new product development & lifecycle management, and product application technical support. Key accomplishments:▶ Successfully integrated two directly competing brands (resulting from M&A) into a cohesive, unified portfolio catering to distinctive user segments. Brands went from overlapping to a mutually accretive market coverage, resulting in 35% sales growth and 400bps+ contribution margin expansion.▶ By partnering up with leading edge technology companies in ceramic coatings, introduced major performance enhancements in the metal drilling portfolio, which turned into a sustainable competitive advantage. New product vitality rate went from 5% to 40%+.▶ Built and developed a team of 11 product application specialists to provide productivity support to end users in the field, as well as generate incremental demand through assisted new product trials.

Brazil

Management of the Power Tool Accessories portfolio in Brazil. Main responsibilities included market intelligence, portfolio management, pricing, new product introductions and marketing communications. Key accomplishments:▶ Achieved leadership position in the concrete hammer drilling category, with a share gain of 2500 bps (USD.5M incremental sales in 2007) while considerably increasing profitability.▶ Introduced a new merchandising program for drilling products that revitalized the brand presence at the point of sale and generated yearly incremental revenues over USD2M.▶ Other USD.5M+ new product initiatives: Speedbor next generation of wood boring bits, Strait-Line electronic measuring tools, fastener drive bits line extension, ATC diamond blades, ATC wood flat bits.

Brasil

Responsible for coordinating and implementing business development projects with the guidance of the Marketing Director. Key accomplishments:▶ Introduced a new line of torches and accessories (Bernzomatic) in Brazil with focus on HVAC segment, and reached USD2M+ annual sales with above-the-fleet profitability.▶ Developed a strategic alliance with Cooper Tools in Brazil to launch a complete range of fastening keys for the mechanics market, resulting in incremental yearly sales of USD1M.▶ Launched a program of hole saws that quickly brought the company to the second position in the market, generating yearly sales of USD1M.

Brazil

Provided administrative support to the Director of Sales to Affiliates. Key accomplishments:▶ Facilitated communications / business development between Newell Brazil operation (factory) and its affiliates in USA, Australia, UK, Denmark, Mexico and South Africa.▶ Provided key support in the company’s defense against anti-dumping suit moved by Argentine drill bit manufacturers. Results: no anti-dumping barriers imposed.▶ Enabled the re-export of outsourced products in/from Brazil to other Latin America markets with duty exemptions through specific manufacturing arrangements.▶ Provided key communications support in a global sourcing initiative led by the US headquarters.▶ Identified tax rebate opportunities in the import of components.▶ Devised and coded a business intelligence application named DataExpress.