Sweaty Betty has bold ambitions globally and has announced a raft of new stores in the UK and the key US market, as well as taking on a new agency that’s preparing a major campaign.

As part of London-based women’s gym-to-street brand’s growth plan, it has also just announced the appointment of Helen Harding as chief product officer (CPO). She has 20+ years of relevant leadership experience, “building commercial global marketplace strategies through a consumer-centric lens, and a relentless focus on best-in-class product execution”. The company said “her strong background in transformational change and organisational design is rooted in core principles of modelling simplicity and repeatable success to enable sustainable growth”. 

And her track record is impressive. Prior to Sweaty Betty, she was Castore’s CPO, a key job given that it’s one of the fastest-growing UK sports brands. She was “fundamental in driving the commercial product strategy, design and development that has led to the eight-year-old brand gaining a £1 billion valuation”.

She’s also set and executed product strategy across multi-channel high-volume British brands such as Superdry, M&S and George at Asda, resulting in “a diverse skill set across all facets of buying, sourcing, product quality and sustainability, which will be an invaluable asset” to Sweaty Betty. 

Global brand president Melissa Mullen hailed “her extraordinary global expertise, proven track record of scaling dynamic brands [and] profound understanding of product strategy”.

With all that in mind, FashionNetwork.com spoke to her to find out what made her make the leap from Castore to Sweaty Betty. 

“I want every day to be a day to learn and provide progression for myself, the team and the brand. I get my wins through the success of those I partner with, and was keen to learn more and create more value in return. I enjoyed being part of the Castore brand journey and it gave me the fire to find a new route to champion the consumer, this time with a focus on empowering women,” she told us.

And that last point is clearly important as she said it was big reason Sweaty Betty appealed to her.

“Having purpose is a key part of how I operate, a purpose has to give value and I find huge personal value in the empowerment of women,” she said. “What also resonates with me is the brand DNA, its strong and confident while also playful and full of personality. There are no compromises to product quality and consumer solutions are at the forefront of the design thought process. I am also an advocate of the leadership style at Sweaty Betty, it’s the perfect fit for me and one I know I can contribute to and enhance”.

Clearly, going from a brand with huge momentum like Castore to one that’s more established like Sweaty Betty will come with challenges as far as igniting fast growth is concerned. But she’s very upbeat about what can be achieved, especially as the brand ramps up activity beyond its domestic UK market, and there’s a clear feeling that Sweaty Betty is on the cusp of strong growth.

“The opportunity for global expansion is both big and exciting,” she explained. “Sweaty Betty has such a defined brand presence, target consumer and energising purpose – to be able to take that global for women to live their active lifestyle — would be incredibly rewarding to me personally, and a great growth journey for the brand. Creating the right product mix for target territories and trading channels is about mixing the science of data with the art of being consumer-centric and forward-looking. With the positive culture and progressive mindset I’ve experienced within the team, nothing is insurmountable here.”
 
Harding joins and strengthens the wider executive leadership team alongside recently recruited VP of digital, Ian Kennedy, another sports industry veteran. 

He has more than 17 years of digital and e-commerce experience, having most recently been director of digital experience at Puma. There he led the brand’s approach to scaling its e-commerce and digital consumer experience globally. 

He’d previously been with Chelsea Football Club as digital director, launching and scaling its mobile app and digital presence, along with spending almost eight years based in the UAE where he was with Emirates Airline as head of digital marketing.

US expansion, new stores and community focus

While Kennedy’s appointment shows digital is a key focus for the label, physical stores are also hugely important.

The brand has recently opened in Chicago’s Southport neighbourhood at 3530 N Southport Avenue, and Washington DC’s Georgetown area at 3251 M St NW. And UK openings include its debut in Wales with a store in Cardiff’s Morgan Quarter that opened in October and a new store in Westfield London that opened in November.

The company said the stores are “intended to increase brand awareness and drive retail sales in vibrant community locations, reinforcing the brand’s commitment to bringing the unique Sweaty Betty experience to more women across the world”.

And Melissa Mullen said the stores “mark an exciting opportunity to connect with new communities and deepen our presence in key markets”.

The team’s regular mention of the word “community” is key here. It’s always been at the core of the brand and if anything, it has doubled down on that since Wolverine Worldwide acquired it for almost £300 million in 2021.

The past 18 months have been particularly important as it has put new management in place (a process that the latest appointments show is ongoing) and focused on just how it can connect more often and more productively with that community.

Part of this was the appointment of Kerry Williams as its chief marketing officer (CMO) earlier this year. As a former England and Great Britain international hockey player and with more than 14 years of marketing leadership experience in the sports sector (including time spent at Nike), she was clearly a good fit for the growing brand.

FashionNetwork.com also spoke to her in London about the marketing approach and she said the brand had spent time going “back to our roots to figure out exactly who we are, what that means for women and who our target audience is”. Having done that, she now believes “we should just be owning that space and not trying to compete in areas where we just get lost”. And she’s keen to differentiate the label clearly as “there are so many brands [out there] that it just can feel like a sea of sameness”.

The focus on the community is a big part of her thinking and extends to store location choices. Williams said “we want to make sure that we are where our consumer is”. But that’s not just about being where the customer is when they want to spend money as there’s also a lot of effort put into running feelgood community events from its store base. It has around 80 doors at present so the space allocation is pretty good and the opportunity to run an events programme is huge. 

Think weekly run clubs, yoga, pilates or spin sessions and lots more. But this isn’t just about opportunities for outperformers to impress. These events are as much about the rest of us simply being active.

Of course, Sweaty Betty is a company that wants to sell as many product as it can. And such events (as well as other ways in which it reaches out to its community) are key for helping it find out about what motivates its customers. 

Williams is committed to understanding what the brand’s customers (and potential customers) are thinking. And what they’re thinking extends to why they may not be making the most of their exercise opportunities — which could boil down to a careless comment about someone’s appearance crushing a woman’s confidence and stopping her being active.

“I think anything is more powerful when it’s led by the consumer. We can have 10 women with 10 different reasons why they’re afraid to wear shorts, or why they haven’t done for 20 years,” she explained, adding that for women, understanding “the constant comparison, the constant balls that are being juggled, whether it’s family, career, friendship groups, the PTA, the Whatsapp group” is hugely important for a brand dedicated to women’s activewear. 

“We don’t talk about [the pressures enough] as women and brands don’t hear it in the right way. They almost shame you a little bit. Like, you really need to have it all and be able to do it all, otherwise you’re failing. The great thing about Sweaty Betty is that we’re trying to embrace our bodies, trying to make sure that you are able to just be who you want to be, and not feel judged in any way, shape or form, whether that’s if you want to wear the bright prints, or whether you want to just wear black, whether you should feel comfortable or feel empowered to work out or not work out. 

“We’re trying to get that message across as the go-to brand to just embrace who you are”.

The company is constantly evaluating feedback (not just on its products but also things like its photography) to identify just what women want and Williams said it has discovered that “what they look for is comfort, versatility and the feminine details that make them feel good. The versatility bit is the key thing here. It’s like being able to have a crossover so you have the performance benefits so that you can work out, but it also has a style element, that if you are going to brunch, if you are out and about, that you still look good. I think it goes back to that ‘juggling’ mindset. We’ve got so much going on.”

Of course it’s not a case of trying to tick every single box in a woman’s life, but ensuring the brand can fit into the parts of its where it has something to offer. 

“We have got our focus on being an activewear brand, but we do have an extensive lifestyle range as well. It’s the crossover between the two, and that’s going to come to fruition even more so if you look at future designs that are coming in”.

It means that under the ownership of Wolverine Worldwide, the design teams for active and lifestyle are more integrated because the company can’t ignore the fact that its consumer research has shown an item designed for, say, running or yoga, might also be worn all day.

And that means a huge opportunity to sell more, something Helen Harding’s arrival will clearly accelerate. 

New agency

With the bulk of its business happening in the UK, the company has massive potential in the US and also in other international markets. And that means strong marketing.

Only last month Sweaty Betty appointed House 337 to create a new global brand campaign aimed at building awareness both in the UK and international markets. The campaign will debut early next year and will aim to drive a deeper emotional connection with its target audience.

Yet it’s not losing sight of the fact that emotional connections can come from smaller initiatives, bringing us back to its community focus. For instance, on International Day of the Girl its Hijab campaign gave hijabs to UK schools as part of its commitment to breaking down barriers around kit.

And as well as that big international campaign, other plans for 2025 are more grassroots. For instance, they include the soon-to-launch schools PE changing rooms makeover competition. It said that “transforming girls’ changing rooms is critical to our mission to get more teenage girls active. The lack of privacy, inadequate facilities and negative attitudes are key contributory factors putting girls off from doing PE”.

It looks like 2025 is going to be an interesting year for the label both on the world stage and at a more granular level.