Walter Kaihatu

Background

About Walter Kaihatu

Accomplished Company President, Division President, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Vice President and General Manager with a track record of taking on and turning around under performing businesses I've on average created +10% to +100% annual OI growth while leading transformational change, accelerated product development + product management, general management, marketing, brand building, turn arounds and excellence in improving top line, gross margin, accretive innovation and operational efficiencies in hard lines, soft lines and apparel, PPE, safety equipment and intrinsically safe lighting products. Successful experience working with and creating programs for major retailers like Walmart, Amazon, Lowe's, Home Depot, Cabela's, Bass Pro, Dick's, Academy, Sportsman's Warehouse, W.W. Grainger, REI, Canadian Tire as well as specialty retail and D2C ecomm domestically and internationally. Transformative Leadership/Team Building: Lead turnarounds and strategic pivots during transformative repositioning of several brands leading to improvement of revenue, profit, and inventory turns. Financial Oversight: Full P&L responsibility resulting in GM and EBIT improvements. Operations Management: Supply chain and sourcing improvements resulted in 100% fewer QC rejections, lower costs, quicker production times and improvements in warehouse cycle times. Channel Strategy: Repositioned all brands by increasing distribution within current channels, expanding into other channels of distribution delivering lower development cost, higher absorption and accelerated ROI. My strategies resulted in over $750 million in sales growth for the brands I've lead in my career. Product Development/Management: I've lead product development teams that have introduced hundreds of new products while rationalizing under performing products resulting in a net gain in sales and a net reduction in inventory and product overlap.