- Oboz made four senior hires in under a year, including Colin True and David Karstad of the “Rock Fight” podcast.
- The brand is re-entering trail running for SS27 with the Anabatic Pro and Anabatic Wind Evo, targeting hikers who run.
- Oboz posted NZD $38.0 million (approximately $22.7 million) in sales for the six months ended January 31, 2026, up 6.5% year over year, per parent company KMD Brands.
Oboz Footwear has spent nearly two decades building a loyal following in outdoor specialty through a straightforward formula: fit, durability and strong retailer relationships. Now the Bozeman, Mont.-based hiking brand is adding something new to that foundation. A significant reshaping of its leadership team and product strategy is underway.
In less than a year, Oboz has made four senior hires across product development, design, sales and marketing, bringing in executives with deep footwear industry backgrounds to drive the brand into its next chapter.
Oboz is owned by KMD Brands, which also has the Rip Curl and Kathmandu brands in its portfolio.
Oboz Rebuilds Its Senior Leadership Team
When asked about the “Rock Fight” hires, President Amy Beck did not start with the podcast. She started with the broader context: a deliberate effort over the past year to reshape both the product and executive teams with footwear-focused talent.
“As part of that, we’ve reshaped our senior leadership team pretty aggressively, especially hyper-focused on product,” Beck said.
The first wave came roughly six months ago. Mark Balint joined as Footwear Design Director, coming most recently from Nobull with earlier experience at New Balance and a career spent entirely in footwear. Chris Aamot joined as Director of Product Development and Sourcing, bringing 18 years of experience at Crocs before coming to Oboz.
Then, within the last two months, Oboz added Colin True as Senior Director of Wholesale and David Karstad as Senior Director of Brand and Marketing. Both came from “Rock Fight,” the outdoor industry podcast, but Beck was clear that their footwear credentials drove the decisions. Karstad brings brand experience across Adidas, Vans, Teva and Timberland. True is, in Beck’s words, “footwear obsessed.”
Four hires, four different functions, all in under a year.
“We needed a bit of an energy jolt,” Beck said. “And so it has happened and you can feel it within the organization. It’s exciting, really exciting.”
The results showed up quickly. Oboz held its brand summit, its internal name for its annual sales meeting, about a month after the hires came together. Beck said the shift in energy was palpable.
Oboz Sawtooth Collection Evolves for SS27
Oboz’s most important franchise is getting a meaningful update for SS27. The Sawtooth has anchored the line for years, and the brand has spent recent seasons building out a tiered good-better-best positioning within it. Beck described the collection as the cornerstone of the hiking wall, something that needs to keep improving and be modernized, not reinvented.
The broader product architecture the brand is working from has three lanes. Rugged trail is the heritage Oboz is known for. Fast trail is where lighter and faster styles meet the market with a distinctive Oboz point of view. All trail covers comfortable movement across diverse terrain, tempos and lifestyles.
“We don’t want to confuse our partners nor confuse our consumer,” Beck said. “True to the trail has been an underlying tagline. Now it’s become an ethos.”
The Oboz Sawtooth collection. Photo courtesy of Oboz.
Oboz Re-Enters Trail Running with the Anabatic Collection for SS27
The most forward-looking product news for SS27 is the return of trail running, or as Beck frames it, a re-entry rather than a launch.
Oboz founder John Conley originally built the brand with trail running in mind before it moved deep into hiking territory.
“It’s in our DNA,” Beck said, noting that some of Oboz’s earliest product concepts were trail runners.
The Katabatic collection, which has been building across several seasons, has steadily pushed toward lighter and faster silhouettes, but has been positioned as a stable light hiker. The third generation of the Katabatic is selling for SS27.
Now Oboz is adding two new styles alongside it under the name Anabatic. The Anabatic Pro is a carbon-plated performance shoe.
Anabatic Carbon Pro. Courtesy of Oboz Footwear.
The Anabatic Wind Evo is positioned squarely on the trail running side. Together they are designed to legitimize the brand’s trail running entry while staying anchored in what Oboz does well.
The naming is intentionally rooted in Bozeman. A katabatic wind moves downward, stable and grounded. An anabatic wind moves upward, lighter and faster. Beck explained the logic: “The katabatic was the more stable, we’re going down. The anabatic gets you a little lighter and faster as you’re going up.”
Anabatic Wind Evo. Courtesy of Oboz Footwear.
Targeting Hikers Who Run
Critically, Oboz is not chasing the lightest-and-fastest segment. The target consumer is what Karstad describes as hikers who run, people who want trail running capability but expect the fit, durability and traction that define the Oboz brand. Color stays true to the brand’s natural palette with no neons and no color blocking. Beck said early retailer feedback has been strong.
“These trail runners are sleek, they’re fast,” Karstad said. “But they are bomb-proof, durable. They have really rugged lugging systems. You put this thing on and it better come right out of the box and just fit onto that foot. That’s the Oboz promise in all the footwear.”
The plan is a deliberate soft launch for SS27 with athlete seeding, presence at smaller trail events and distribution primarily through existing wholesale partners. A more comprehensive collection and a larger market push is planned for SS28.
“Everyone’s been talking about trail running for the last three years,” Karstad said. “We took our time and are doing it the Oboz way. We want to reach hikers who run. That is our constituency.”
Oboz Prepares to Invest in Brand Storytelling and Awareness
The hires, the product expansion and the Sawtooth evolution all feed into what Beck describes as Oboz’s most significant strategic shift: investing in brand storytelling and awareness at a level the brand has not previously pursued.
For most of its history, Oboz has let the product and retailer relationship do the talking. The brand has invested more in education and outreach than most, Karstad said, showing up at events, putting shoes on people and building genuine account relationships. That foundation stays. But the team believes the brand is ready to reach a broader audience.
“We’ll be investing in what we’re calling more unmistakable brand storytelling,” Beck said. “We’ve got to drive some unprecedented reach. It’s really important to us. Something we’ve heard our retail partners say they’d love from us.”
Karstad framed it as an opportunity that has been waiting. “Oboz has been a very introspective brand. It really hasn’t gone and marketed in the way that a lot of other players have,” he said. “It’s a new opportunity to tell this story for the first time in many ways to a broader audience. The brand is just ready.”
He signaled that this fall will mark the beginning of a new tone and voice for Oboz, one that translates founder John Conley’s original vision for a modern market. “Over the next 12 months, you’re going to start to see product and brand come together in a way that maybe people haven’t seen from Oboz,” Karstad said.
Shopify Launch and a Measured Distribution Strategy
On the e-commerce side, Oboz did not launch direct-to-consumer online sales until 2021. Beck said Oboz recently launched on Shopify, and KMD later said online performance accelerated in Q3 FY26 following that launch.
Beck said the new site experience gives the brand a much stronger platform for storytelling and that early indications are encouraging.
Oboz sells primarily through outdoor specialty, has growing traction in farm and ranch channels, and does limited business with Dick’s Sporting Goods via drop ship.
Beck said the brand is deliberate about where it adds new distribution, noting that thoughtful growth matters more than simply expanding doors.
“More isn’t more always more,” she said. “We’ve got to play the long game.”
Oboz Revenue Context: A Brand Building Toward Growth
The hiring push comes as Oboz is working through a transition period.
According to the KMD Brands FY25 Results Presentation, Oboz posted NZD $76.6 million (approximately $45.3 million) in sales for the fiscal year ended July 31, 2025, down 3.5% year over year. Online sales grew 18.3%, while wholesale trends improved in the second half with the launch of new-season styles for the North American summer hiking season.
The brand returned to growth in the first half of fiscal 2026. According to KMD Brands’ interim report for the six months ended January 31, 2026, Oboz posted NZD $38 million (approximately $22.7 million) in sales, up 6.5% year over year, with wholesale up 7.5%, driven by strong in-season buying from key accounts.
Beck attributed the H1 FY26 sales performance to two decisions that paid off: a deliberate move to build a good-better-best positioning within the core Sawtooth collection, and a willingness to carry inventory when wholesale partners were pulling back.
“We knew people were hesitant just based on the macro environment,” she said. “We strategically took inventory risk to maximize the opportunity as they came. And they did. Not often do we get to say that we did something and it actually worked.”
On the broader wholesale landscape, Beck described a market that is cautiously optimistic but still de-risking, with apparel showing strength, footwear stable and hardgoods under pressure. She also noted a shift back toward leather product that plays directly into Oboz’s wheelhouse.
“Everything was so trail run, synthetic focused,” she said. “We are seeing a bit of a move back to leather products, which is fantastic for us.”
More recently, KMD Brands reported that Oboz tracked up 0.4% in total sales year to date through the fiscal third quarter ended April 30, 2026. Total Oboz sales dipped 8.9% specifically during the third quarter, which KMD attributed to wholesale shipment timing rather than underlying demand, noting the prior quarter had benefited from accelerated shipments of new season styles to support door growth with major North American outdoor specialty retailers.
KMD Brands Launches Companywide Strategic Review
The Q3 update came alongside a significant corporate development. KMD Brands announced in late May that it has launched a formal strategic review, appointing external financial and legal advisors to evaluate its capital structure, brand portfolio and operating model. KMD said all strategic options remain on the table ahead of the new fiscal year, which begins August 1, 2026.
A “Hidden Gem”
As Oboz approaches its 20th anniversary in 2027, Beck and Karstad see a brand whose core strength is product people genuinely love. The opportunity now is simply getting more people to discover it.
“It’s kind of a hidden gem,” Karstad said. “A secret that the core outdoor world has known. But we think there are a lot of people who would appreciate an ethically conscious B Corp that makes incredibly comfortable, long-lasting products to do wonderful, awesome things outside. That’s a pretty cool mix.”
