Puma is losing one of its longest-serving sports marketing executives, with Johan Adamsson leaving the German sportswear company after more than 25 years.
Adamsson joined Puma in February 2001 as deputy director of football marketing and went on to become Vice President of Global Sports Marketing and Sports Licensing. During more than 15 years in senior global leadership roles, he helped build Puma’s sports marketing organisation from the ground up.
His responsibilities included the group’s global sports sponsorship strategy and budget, leading a team of more than 75 people across sports marketing, licensing, legal and finance.
During his tenure, Puma developed and managed partnerships across football, motorsport, athletics, basketball, golf and handball. Its portfolio included relationships with Borussia Dortmund, Arsenal, City Football Group, Manchester City, AC Milan and Palmeiras, as well as football, handball and athletics federations in countries including Italy, Portugal, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Denmark and Jamaica.
Puma’s motorsport portfolio under Adamsson also included Formula 1 team Ferrari.
On the athlete side, he worked with high-profile names including Usain Bolt, Lewis Hamilton, Neymar Jr., Zlatan Ibrahimović and Antoine Griezmann, while helping coordinate Puma’s presence at major events such as the Olympic Games, FIFA World Cups, UEFA European Championships, Africa Cup of Nations and Formula 1 Grands Prix.
Adamsson also played a role beyond Puma. He chaired the International Sports Committee of the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry (WFSGI) for more than a decade and served six years on its board.
During that period, he worked with the International Olympic Committee on the ‘Road to the Games’ agreement, which provided greater flexibility around Rule 40 and enabled Olympic sponsors to use athlete stories in their marketing campaigns around the Games.
Adamsson described the response to his departure as “deeply moving” and highlighted a signed AC Milan shirt presented to him by the club as one of the memorable gestures surrounding his exit.
He has not yet disclosed his next professional destination.
His departure comes as Puma continues to reshape its commercial and organisational structure, making the loss of an executive who has spent more than two decades building its global sports partnership portfolio particularly significant.