
Puma appoints Dominique Gathier as vice president of Teamsport
The 45-year-old executive, who holds both French and German citizenship, has been with the Herzogenaurach-based company for 19 years.
Over nearly two decades, Gathier has held several key roles in marketing and product development. Most recently, he served as senior director of product line management for Teamsport footwear and equipment. In this role, he oversaw the development of Puma's top-performing football boot models, including the Future, Ultra and King lines. He earned a degree in management from Kedge Business School in Bordeaux, France.
'With Dominique, an experienced leader will take over our Teamsport business unit, as he played a key role in developing some of our most successful performance products,' said chief product officer Maria Valdes. 'I'm confident that Dominique will continue to build on Puma's strong momentum in the Teamsport segment and bring exciting new products to market—products that will inspire athletes, whether professional or amateur, as well as teams and fans around the world.'
Gathier will lead the entire product team within the business unit in his new role. 'He will be responsible for ensuring the successful development and execution of product strategies, working closely with Puma's many external partners, including clubs and associations,' the company stated.
Puma's Teamsport unit produces footwear, apparel and accessories for football, as well as other regionally significant sports, such as handball, rugby and cricket.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

LeMonde
6 hours ago
- LeMonde
Personalized AI chatbots go off the rails on Instagram and Messenger
Meta is usually known for making big announcements. This time, however, Mark Zuckerberg's company was surprisingly subdued when it rolled out AI Studio in France: Since the end of July, French Instagram and Messenger app users have been able to create personalized chatbots or chat with ones made by other users. Users can now talk to an artificial intelligence (AI) version of a psychologist, a cooking expert, a version of Batgirl, a parody of Vladimir Putin or even a "virtual girlfriend." All of these bots are created by the platforms' users, based on Llama, Meta's large language model. It only takes a few seconds to set up a chatbot by describing its purpose and personality, with the option to add further instructions if needed. The user can then decide whether to make their chatbot publicly accessible or restrict it to their friends only. However, Meta has warned that "we review AIs you create" before they are published, to ensure they do not violate the platform's rules. Yet the review process is rather superficial. Naruto, Harry Potter, the French YouTuber Squeezie, God, Marilyn Monroe, Breaking Bad 's Walter White and even France's prime minister, François Bayrou: Le Monde quickly found many chatbots that impersonate real people, fictional characters covered by copyright protections, and religious figures – including several Jesus Christ bots – all of which are forbidden by Meta. While some of these bots appeared not to have interacted with any users, others have already exchanged millions of messages. Furthermore, despite rules prohibiting the chatbots from posing as financial advisers, dozens of AI bots dedicated to cryptocurrency, personal finance or investment could be found easily. The few profiles tested by Le Monde only repeated general statements. However, in just a few moments, we were able to create a bot specialized in financial advice that encouraged beginners to invest online via the fraudulent trading website RiveGarde, which a previous Le Monde investigation found was connected to an organized crime network. It was then possible to share the chatbot with friends after it went through Meta's automatic verification process, which took less than a minute.
LeMonde
7 hours ago
- LeMonde
French swimmer Maxime Grousset clinches third world title in butterfly
Léon Marchand is not the only athlete to thrill French swimming fans. At the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Maxime Grousset went largely unnoticed – he did not win any individual medals. However, the World Swimming Championships in Singapore have brought him back into the spotlight as the second main figure in French swimming, nearly on par with "King Léon." Earlier in the week, "Max'" had set the French team in motion by winning the 50m butterfly, his second world title after the 100m butterfly in Fukuoka, Japan, in 2023. The third title came soon after, just five days later, as he won another 100m butterfly final, setting new French and European records (49.62 seconds) on Saturday, August 2. He finished just ahead of his friend, Switzerland's Noè Ponti (second, 49.83 seconds), and Canadian athlete Ilya Kharun (third, 50.07 seconds). Grousset, the distance's second-best performer of all time, became the first French swimmer to swim the 100m butterfly in under 50 seconds. "What did I just do? That's crazy!" he said, looking ecstatic after his race. "He set the pace for the others from the very start of the race; he had already partly won. He raced like a boss," said Denis Auguin, national technical director of the French Swimming Federation (FFN), immediately after the race.


Local France
16 hours ago
- Local France
French wine industry warns of ‘brutal' impact from US tariffs
Brussels and Washington struck a trade deal at the weekend which will see most EU exports including France's cherished wines and spirits face a 15 percent US levy. 'The impact of this duty will be all the more brutal as it goes hand in hand with the decline of the US dollar in the United States,' Gabriel Picard, president of the French wine and spirits exporters' federation FEVS, said in a statement. He estimated that the combined effect 'could lead to a 25 percent reduction' in wine and spirits sales in the United States, representing a loss of €1billion. A drop in exports would also affect 600,000 jobs in the wine and spirits industry in France, the statement said. 'Negotiations must continue,' Picard said. 'The situation cannot remain as it is.' Jean-Marie Fabre, president of the union of independent winegrowers of France, urged France to continue negotiations. 'We hope to be granted an exemption,' he told broadcaster RMC. Advertisement The tariffs could reduce consumption of French champagne in the United States, warned Maxime Toubart, the co-president of the Interprofessional Champagne Wines Committee (CIVC). This would impact employment both in the United States and in France, he added. The EU said Thursday it expected its wine sector to be hit along with most European products, but negotiations were ongoing to secure a carve-out. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Thursday that France wanted to obtain 'guarantees' for its wines and spirits.