Forbes
Apr 15, 2024
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The entrepreneurial approach to driving business growth and strategic advantage that these marketing leaders take is beholden to neither the status quo nor disrupting it for disruption’s sake.
Because Hiranaga is driving Cotopaxi’s growth from “start-up to scale-up” while maintaining a focus not just on this adventure apparel maker’s business but also on inspiring other businesses to “embrace capitalism for good.”
The one-time General Mills CMO tells Forbes he is on a journey from the intrapreneurial to the truly entrepreneurial, at this still small but rapidly growing brand. Hiranaga sees his remit as both “maintaining the entrepreneurial spirit the brand was built on'' and “building a company, an organizational infrastructure, team, capabilities, and culture that believes business can do good.”
To these ends, Hiranaga redesigned Cotopaxi’s marketing capability and culture, and has transformed its product launch model from seasonal drops to full-scale campaigns in new product and usage categories. He and his team have led Cotopaxi’s expansion into new media channels, video formats, and dozens of partnerships with “same-DNA” brands, allowing Cotopaxi’s smaller budgets expanded reach and impact.
Hiranaga says he wants “Cotopaxi to be an example for other companies...for others to learn from our successes and our mistakes.” And this mission-driven, entrepreneurial approach seems to be working. Cotopaxi’s marketing has received 3 major brand impact awards, and “in an outdoor industry that encountered headwinds,” Hiranaga reports the company grew 35% YoY.