We have some exciting news to share here at Shop Eat Surf.
We have hired Kari Hamanaka, a seasoned business reporter with experience covering our industry and others, who will help take SES to a new level.
Kari comes to us most recently from Sourcing Journal, where she was the logistics editor, covering transportation and the broader supply chain – from first to last mile and everything in between.
She also served as retail and tech editor at Women’s Wear Daily focused on the West Coast, where she wrote about LA streetwear brands during the height of their intersection with luxury, in addition to DTC brands such as Revolve and Nasty Gal and the major malls such as Westfield Century City, The Grove LA, and Beverly Center. She also covered American Apparel, including the bankruptcies and protests surrounding the company.
Many of you will also know her work at the Orange County Business Journal, where she covered action sports, retail, restaurants, and hospitality. She has a lot of experience covering industry companies including Quiksilver when it was publicly traded, the sale of Billabong, the evolution of Sole Tech, the many changes at Oakley, the rise of Vans, and more.
Kari grew up in Brea and graduated from Cal State Fullerton, where she studied communications with an emphasis on print journalism.
“I’ve been reading SES from the time I began covering the action sports industry and am incredibly honored to be a part of what Tiffany has carefully built up over the years,” Kari said. “A lot has changed in the industry since then – including the transition of founders from companies they started, public companies going private, consolidation, the growth of emerging brands, and the always-changing consumer. I’m beyond excited to get to work and start reporting for SES readers!”
Some of you have been reading SES since I started the publication from scratch, and can likely appreciate how exciting it is that we can now hire a reporter of Kari’s caliber, which will allow us to produce more high-quality content for our audience.
Kari’s hiring is part of a new content plan under our parent company, Emerald, to expand business news coverage in the action sports and outdoor space. We are launching a new website for outdoor business news called The Daily, which builds on the great print content Outdoor Retailer has produced at its trade shows over the years. The site is currently in the beta stage, but we have begun posting some news to the site, as well as coverage of the recent OR Snow Show.
We are in the process of hiring a dedicated reporter for that site, and I will be overseeing that outlet as well as Shop Eat Surf, and will also write across both properties.
I so appreciate our incredible readers around the world who have hung with us all these years, and I hope you all welcome Kari with open arms. She is going to make SES better!
As always, we welcome story ideas and news tips:
kari@shop-eat-surf-outdoor.com
Tiffany@shop-eat-surf-outdoor.com
