For both Dan Sheridan and Matt Dodge, 2024 was a year of change and transition.

For Sheridan, a Brooks lifer who began with the company in 1998, the year brought a new job title: CEO. After serving as the company’s president and chief operating officer (COO) for more than two years, Sheridan stepped into the CEO role in April. He replaced Jim Weber, the celebrated executive who had saved Brooks from the brink of bankruptcy in the early 2000s and steered its climb to the performance running mountaintop – and more than $1 billion in annual sales – over his 23-year tenure as the brand’s sherpa. 

Though Sheridan had apprenticed under Weber for years, this was different. Two weeks after taking over for Weber, in fact, Sheridan was suddenly the one repping Brooks at the 2024 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting, where he had to detail Brooks’ performance, strategy and opportunity for other Berkshire managers, shareholders and attending media.

“You never want to be the guy who replaces the guy and it was intimidating through the whole transition,” says Sheridan, who waited months before moving into Weber’s former office at Brooks’ Seattle headquarters.

Dodge, meanwhile, faced his own professional conversion.

Though with Brooks since 2013, Dodge had spent the previous five years shepherding Brooks’ business in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region as well as the Asia Pacific and Latin America (APLA) region. He returned stateside in August after being appointed president and COO and immediately had to get reacquainted with colleagues as well as the brand’s U.S. business.

“That kind of adjustment takes time,” Dodge confesses.

With 2025 underway, however, Sheridan and Dodge are well settled into their new roles and eager to push Brooks forward.

Running Insight senior writer Danny Smith sat down with the two top Brooks execs during The Running Event in Austin, TX, in November.

Hitting Milestones

To be certain, 2024 was another banner year for Brooks. For the first time in company history, the brand crossed $1 billion in global revenue before the start of the fourth quarter en route to another record-breaking year. 

At the close of 2024’s third quarter – the most recent quarter of corporate financials available at press time – Brooks’ North American business had surged 10 percent year over year and the company celebrated its 11th consecutive quarter as the U.S. market share leader in adult performance running footwear. With the Ghost, Glycerin, Glycerin GTS, Adrenaline GTS and newly launched Ghost Max, Brooks boasted half of the top 10 footwear styles at U.S. specialty retail for the fourth consecutive quarter, according to Upper Quadrant Specialty Run Market Data.

Sheridan attributes the consistent growth to two specific elements: focus and culture. 

More than two decades ago, Weber extracted Brooks from every athletic endeavor save running. Brooks would be a performance running brand and a performance running brand alone, Weber ordered. Then, as now, Brooks remains singularly committed to running, living and breathing the sport in everything it does.

“Our focus is why we sit where we are and it’s our competitive advantage,” Sheridan says. “Sharp focus creates massive appeal.”

Second, Brooks’ corporate culture, which now spans multiple continents and some 1400 global employees, is fueled by long-tenured leaders focused intently on values and a self-policing culture that rewards cooperative work.

“This is not an accident,” Sheridan assures.

But don’t mistake Brooks’ focus or stability for complacency. To that point, Brooks shred “Run Happy” – its public tagline since 2009 – for a new global brand platform in May. The new “Let’s Run There” brand position speaks to the evolving role running plays in consumers’ health and wellness journeys and acknowledges everyone is moving along their own path to personal improvement.

“[Let’s Run There] taps into what is universally unique about running, which is the motivation that pulls people to the sport,” Dodge says.

Charging Ahead Now

As Brooks CEO, Sheridan understands his first charge is to secure “the here and now,” which means ensuring the company’s business, brand and culture remain strong and united. It means keeping staff and retail partners engaged and delivering compelling product to the marketplace. He touts a number of innovative performance running products in the queue, a soon-to-drop pipeline of offerings he believes will lead the industry and appeal to dedicated runners and casual runners alike.

Thereafter, though, Sheridan knows he must embrace a longer-term horizon and determine the right products and investments to drive the brand three-to-five years down the road. From shifting consumer trends to global trade, he must prepare for uncertainty and have a plan to address potential disruptions. Here, and true to Brooks’ 21st century corporate philosophy, focus and discipline will make the difference.

“If we execute our strategy, then our outcome is very clear to me,” Sheridan says.

With its North American business solid, Brooks plans to continue attacking the international market, a prime reason behind Dodge’s appointment to the president-COO double role. Brooks claims less than 10 percent of the performance running market in Europe and its business in Asia is “embryotic,” according to Dodge.

“But getting to solve these puzzles is exciting to me,” Dodge says. 

Over recent months, Brooks has debuted a branded retail store in Shanghai, extended its Brooks Run Club digital loyalty program across Europe, the Middle East and Asia and captured accelerating revenue figures in non-North American markets around the globe.

In 2025, Sheridan and Dodge say Brooks will add to the brand, bringing new athletes, novel products and fresh merchandising strategy into the fold. The company is also beginning a multi-year partnership with runDisney as the official running shoe of its popular race series, one counting more than 170,000 participants across six race weekends in Florida and California. 

Dodge says Brooks is poised to accelerate and prepared to “dig deeper” to understand what’s clicking and where momentum can be gained. He champions a commitment to an operating model that’s high touch and high service and promises Brooks will optimize systems and processes with a circle around the consumer. 

“We believe we’re set up to make a lot of people happy,” Dodge says.