Ex-Nike VP named new CEO of Rip Curl five months after shock departure of first female chief Brooke Farris

"Surfing is moving away from its gender-bullying past and understanding that there’s strength in diversity."

A year and a half back, Kathmandu-owned Rip Curl, led by its first female CEO Brook Farris, joined a suite of Australian swimwear companies in pivoting to the growing trans-woman market.

Farris, who had climbed the rungs from the metaphorical mailroom to the boardroom over the course of a stellar fourteen-year career, subsequently quit when the decision led to a world-wide boycott of the brand.

Rip Curl got so much heat, including from high profile anti-trans-gals-in-sports activists Riley Gaines ad Taylor Silverman as well as from their own former team rider Bethany Hamilton, who reportedly split from Rip Curl ‘cause of her anti-T gal stance, they removed a post celebrating the much-admired Sasha Jane Lowerson formerly champion male long boarder Andrew Egan and apologised.

Farris’ appointment as Rip Curl CEO was heralded as important step in smashing the “hyper masculine” boy’s club that had ruled the surf industry since the, uh, boys had created it in 1969.

“The willingness of the sport to elevate people like Brooke into powerful positions is this incredibly pleasing thing – a sign that surfing is moving away from its gender-bullying past and understanding that there’s strength in diversity,” said Nick Carroll, a commentator below the line on BeachGrit.

Farris was the logical choice for the role, the sharpest tool in that particular shed in Torquay, although the wonderful Neil Ridgway aka Head, the company’s marketing man, was a close-ish second I’d imagine.

In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald shortly after making history, she spoke about “empathy-led design”.

Anyway, the new CEO is a former VP and GM of Nike Pacific, Ashley Reade, who oversaw biz worth a billion shekels. Reade’s twenty-year tenure at Nike had him living in Portland, Oregon, and in Shanghai, China.

“Transitions are always mixed feelings of excitement and trepidation due to the unknown,” Reade wrote on LinkedIn.

“However with a lens of transition I do love this quote from the great Phil Knight, ‘If you’re following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you’ve ever felt’.”