When people find their own personal purpose and understand how they can live it within an organization, it creates amazing careers, fulfilled lives, and organizational success. Being able to live your purpose at work is inspiring, motivating and increases your impact on the world.
Anja Wolff, Amer Sports vice president of human resources, has found this sweet spot.
“My personal purpose is to spark the collective energy that makes the magic happen. That’s why I’m so enthusiastic about the work that I’ve been doing at Amer Sports – because it’s so linked with my purpose.”
She’s reflecting on her journey working with Habanero to steward her colleagues at Amer Sports through a co-creative process to define a purpose and values for the organization.
Habanero has partnered with many leading organizations to help them design a purpose and values that align and motivate employees, enrich organizational culture and guide strategic growth. As a group of brands, Amer Sports represented a new challenge, but one the team was excited to take on.
Habanero President Steven Fitzgerald explains: “On the one hand, we were helping them clarify the reason for being. But this is a group of powerful brands, each successful in its own right. So part of it was about articulating the value of these brands being connected to each other under the umbrella of Amer Sports, understanding how everything fits together and making sense of the business model. It’s setting the bar higher for what they can achieve together.”
Amer Sports – a truly global company
Amer Sports is a global community of more than 13,000 people working in 42 countries at corporate offices, brand headquarters, distribution centers, sales and sourcing offices, and factories worldwide. In 2024, their revenue totalled $5.2 billion.
Their iconic sports and outdoor brands – including Arc’teryx, Salomon, Wilson, Atomic, and Peak Performance – have unique roots in different countries, each adding to the diversity and richness of Amer Sports.
“The brand identities were always quite distinct and clear, and brand employees were proud of being in Salomon or in Wilson or Arc’teryx or the like,” says Anja. “But Amer Sports had never articulated an inspiring story about who we are.”
Amer Sports recognized a need to articulate a purpose that would unite everyone at the company – an overarching “why” that would engage and energize employees and enable them to feel part of something bigger than their brand.
Defining the process
Anja considers herself an HR generalist. She has a very good understanding of culture and the DNA of the company. But the idea of this project felt intimidating at first.
“In my career, I’ve learned a lot about change management overall and organizational changes, but culture change was new to me,” she says. “Once we got the go-ahead, I felt overwhelmed by the scope and scale of the project.”
It was important for Amer Sports to partner with an organization that had the expertise and credibility to do this work, as well as a collaborative and innovative way of working. Anja’s conversations with Steven and the other consultants at Habanero were reassuring.
Getting buy-in from leadership
Anja had a project champion in the Group Chief Operating Officer, who had seen first-hand the impact this type of project could have on a company. Many of the brands within Amer Sports, such as Wilson and Arc’teryx, had undertaken similar work to support their high-performing cultures.
However, she still needed to build alignment with the senior leadership team, including the brand presidents.
The brands within Amer Sports each have their own unique story. They were faced with the question: why should we do this? Anja needed to help them see the value of having a purpose and values for Amer Sports, as well as for their own brand.
“We needed something that unites us, because none of the brands alone can achieve what we can achieve together as a group. That rationale helped us secure a mandate to get started.”
Engaging people across the company
The process began with empathetic research. Habanero consultants conducted interviews and workshops with over 150 employees across the organization to uncover the common themes that resonate with and unite all employees.
“It’s not a traditional way of working, but it brings a fresh spirit that aligns with my philosophy,” says Anja. “I believe in being slow in the beginning and bringing people along, so you can be fast in execution. It’s about systematically engaging the organization rather than applying top-down solutions.”
Amer Sports set different expectations for how the Group functions and the brands would implement the new overarching purpose and values. Each brand has their own purpose and a story they convey with that. The Amer Sports purpose “Elevating the world through sport” serves as an umbrella that unites them all. The goal was for them to work together, so the brands could remain focused on their own purpose and values while still feeling connected under Amer Sports. They have the autonomy and flexibility to use the Amer Sports purpose and values when and where suited their needs.
Bridging diverse cultures
They also established a culture working group, led by Anja, with members representing each brand, function and region in the world. Together they homed in on the ideas and themes that were most important to employees and started to shape them into purpose and values statements.
The values came easily to the team, but articulating a purpose statement proved much tougher. There were two main challenges the team was facing. The first was to find language that would resonate across cultures.
“We’re globally diverse and we don't have a headquarter in one place in the world,” says Anja. “Our international ownership and our brands born in Canada, France, Austria, Sweden and the US all have strong voices. These are all very different cultures, so finding language that resonated with everyone was a challenge.”
During key moments along the journey, Anja turned to her own personal purpose to make decisions. When Amer Sports presented an early draft of their purpose statement to the executive board, everyone felt it was okay.
“They gave us the go-ahead, but no one was really excited by it,” Anja says. “My intuition told me we weren’t done yet. People were not connecting to it the way they should.”
It was a difficult decision to make, because they had to adjust their timeline, but in the end it was worth it. When they finally found the right language for Amer Sports’ new purpose statement, Anja – and all the leaders – could feel the difference.
“Everyone was really proud. Now we have it! No one challenged it, and that is the best support you can get. They were totally behind it, and they could speak to it authentically,” she says.
Telling their story
On February 1, 2024, Amer Sports celebrated its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with a takeover of Times Square. A collection of supersized billboards lit up the city streets with images from Amer Sports’ iconic brands along with its new purpose: Elevating the world through sport.
“When our executives were interviewed on the launch of the IPO, they could easily link their brand story to why Amer Sports exists and how they connect with the purpose of Amer Sports. The story they shared with investors was coherent and compelling.”
For Anja, that day in New York was an important milestone and a testament to the impact of living her own personal purpose at Amer Sports.
“I had goosebumps,” she says. “It was so amazing – one of the most inspiring moments of my whole career.”
“When our executives were interviewed on the launch of the IPO, they could easily link their brand story to why Amer Sports exists and how they connect with the purpose of Amer Sports. The story they shared with investors was coherent and compelling.”
Keeping it alive
Amer Sports took a intentional, co-creative approach to launching and socializing their new purpose and values across the brands, which has helped build trust for other initiatives.
“I can approach brands when I want to launch something, because my name is now associated with this very partner-orientated approach,” says Anja. “Part of what enabled me to build that credibility is that I was genuinely excited by the work, and people could see that.”
As an example, Anja recently initiated an ambassador network that gives employees an opportunity to strengthen their culture-building skills (and learn new ones) while connecting with colleagues across the company. People were enthusiastic to join.
“We got 56 volunteers from 26 locations in 16 countries,” says Anja. “It's a perfect representation of Amer Sports worldwide, with all brands, group functions, regions and continents represented. It's amazing.”
Making it personal
To engage key leaders, Anja needed to speak to the logical aspect of this work – the tangible value of developing a purpose and values for Amer Sports. Now, she wanted to reach people’s hearts by helping Amer Sports employees find their own personal purpose and understand how they can live it within the organization.
In partnership with Habanero, they’ve hosted personal purpose workshops for employees. Working in small groups, people explore their own personal purpose while building and practising peer coaching skills with each other. They then have an opportunity to connect some of the ideas within their personal purpose to the organizational purpose.
The feedback so far has been very positive. The sessions are leaving people, including Anja, feeling motivated and energized by their work. Employees at every level are empowered to bring their purpose to life at work, helping Amer Sports to sustain and grow its high level of performance.
“I’ve always been successful at taking on large responsibilities, driven by my love and strength in working with people. Now, I want to leave something meaningful for the organization and the world.”
