Jennifer Harned
Former General Manager & Vice President, Sport Protection, Vista Outdoor
Jennifer Harned is an authentic, big picture, vision-oriented leader who motivates company resources to generate revenue and efficiencies. As a trusted advisor, she has formulated teams in numerous multinational, multisite, multichannel, SKU intensive, branded consumer good environments that have improved profitability and working capital. A fearless analytical approach, passion for getting things done while balancing short, mid, and long term objectives, and subject matter expertise in areas such as stage-gate product innovation, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), long range planning, strategic sourcing, supplier management and negotiations, budgetary oversight, and systems implementation has yielded multi-million dollars of annual benefit to organizations. With an abundance of international experience, both personally and professionally, she brings a strong understanding of various markets throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia in order to identify what needs to be done and activates resources accordingly.
Currently, Jennifer is General Manager & Vice President, Sport Protection at Vista Outdoor. In her role, she has P&L responsibility with the objective of driving increases in market share and profitability across multiple outdoor product industries through leadership of the Bell, Giro, Bollé, Cébé, Serengeti, Blackburn, Raskullz, and Krash! brands. This follows a tenure as Vice President, Global Sourcing, Outdoor Products during which she led the change management necessary to develop and implement a strategic sourcing and procurement function.
Prior to joining Vista Outdoor, Jennifer held various career progressive positions at Deloitte & Touche as a consultant where she analyzed, documented, and developed redesign recommendations of operational processes for financial services, entertainment, and government middle market sector clients. At Guitar Center and THQ, Jennifer has led implementations and administered Hyperion, responsible for assessing and delivering all system requirements, issue resolution, and training. Most recently, at BRG Sports (formerly Easton-Bell Sports) she held the position of Chief Operations & Chief Financial Officer of the Action Sports division of BRG Sports. Her leadership enhanced supplier and customer relationships and KPI performance, driving improvements in profitability and working capital. She was also instrumental in assessing acquisition and divestiture opportunities aligned with overall business strategies resulting in the divestiture of Action Sports businesses, investment in a revolutionary helmet technology, acquisition of a group of competitive brands, acquisition of distribution rights to expand geographic presence and capture international growth, as well as the divestiture of a non-core cycling components business.
In addition to her executive career, Jennifer has enjoyed participation in Junior Achievement and the mentoring program at Camber Outdoors (formerly Outdoor Industries Women’s Coalition). Further, she enjoyed a nontraditional childhood as an employee of a family owned multi store Wendy’s franchise.
Jennifer obtained her Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Notre Dame in Accountancy and Computer Applications with a concentration in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. She also holds an MBA from University of California Los Angeles.