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There’s a common thread linking those who sought to improve the world through sport, from the political resistance of boxing iconoclast Muhammad Ali to the gender equality quest of women’s tennis pioneer Billie Jean King: they fought detractors, they challenged perceptions, they overcame adversity.
After 30 years in the gladiatorial arena that is the global sportswear market, trading commercial blows with behemoths Nike and Adidas, Under Armour has distilled this gutsy, athletic spirit into not just its apparel but its entire operation.
“We may not be the smartest people in the room all the time, but we’re the hungriest and we’re the most humble, and we’re determined to make a difference.”
“We may not be the smartest people in the room all the time, but we’re the hungriest and we’re the most humble, and we’re determined to make a difference,” proclaims Managing Director, APAC and Chief Marketing Officer Simon J Pestridge, who joined the company 18 months ago, after three decades in retail.
“If that ethos that you’re never satisfied manifests itself through every single meeting, you’re always striving to make the world better.”
Under Armour debuted with “The Shorty” in 1996 – a shirt designed to quickly wick sweat away from athletes’ skins. Founded by Kevin Plank in his grandmother’s basement, the company has positioned itself as an outfit that’s comfortable operating on the cutting-edge of technology-led sportswear and footwear.
The status quo has no home here. What followed was a constant drip-feed of innovations: Heatgear®, launched in 1996 to keep athletes cool in hot environments, was joined in 1997 by ColdGear®, engineered to retain warmth in cold conditions.
Then there were the shared cultural moments: Under Armour’s first national television ad in the United States in 2003, starring charismatic NFL figure Eric ‘Big E’ Ogbogu is lodged in the collective consciousness. The brand’s exponential growth and popularity during this period culminated in a fruitful NASDAQ public offering in 2005.
Even so, waters have been choppy at times. The sportswear retail sector is a commercial hotbed where consumer tastes are now increasingly subject to social media whims, and hip upstarts like On and Hoka feasting on the legacy giants’ profits.
Nike’s ongoing financial and existential woes are an example of as a portent of how rapidly the mighty can fall. Pestridge readily admits that at some point on its journey Under Armour lost its way, drifting away from core principles and overreaching in many aspects of the business.
But in keeping with the brand’s can-do DNA, not to mention his own personal pluckiness, the British native has devoted the last year-and-a-half to steering the company back on track – reminding the world of the company’s innovation-centric values, while developing products people will still covet in 10 years’ time. It’s what Pestridge terms Under Armour’s “consumerist” approach: an internal pledge to report to its clientele first.
The opening salvo, in a realm of seemingly endless choice, was reducing the number of product styles, from 12,000 down to 5,000 offerings per season.
“Focusing on the very best products at the right price points is the direction we’re heading in,” Pestridge says. “So that when anybody walks into one of our retail stores or visits our retail site, it has to be incredibly clear what we stand for, because that’s what made us great in the past and that’s what will make us great again in the future.”
Equally crucial to Under Armour’s next cycle is success in China, a trailblazing, future-forward marketplace that Pestridge regards as a bellwether for tomorrow’s global trends. He describes how the firm reached out to consumers across the country, uncovering through research an endemic dark-horse mentality among the citizenry, one that riffs with the company’s current state of mind.
“There’s this resolute determination to move on to something better,” Pestridge says of the nation. “Whereas an underdog might win by chance, a dark horse is determined to get what they want to achieve.”
“When anybody walks into one of our retail stores or visits our retail site, it has to be incredibly clear what we stand for.”
In China, as around the rest of the globe, Under Armour has spent the past 18 months reassessing its relationships with partners and suppliers including intimate wear pace-setter Regina Miracle International.
“Their job is to represent our brand and to obviously be profitable and our job is to give them the tools and resources to be as profitable as possible so that we can get our product in front of as many athletes as we can,” he says.
“We need to be looking at every relationship and partnership so that the sum of the parts is bigger than what just one party can bring.”
Being “the first phone call” for suppliers who’ve discovered radical fabrics and leading-edge materials remains pivotal to Pestridge’s mission.
“When we were looking for a new retail concept, such as the one in Guangzhou, people were bringing us ideas that they hadn’t taken to anyone else because they know we’re innovators and they know we’re going to push the possibilities a little bit,” he notes.
As Pestridge heads toward his second year in the hot seat, those creative boundaries continue to be probed, congruent with that three-decade crusade to make the planet a better place. Under Armour’s new NEOLAST™ technology, an advanced fiber designed to provide stretch, resiliency and long-lasting shape retention while addressing sustainability challenges.
One of Under Armour’s newest innovations in this area is the Bouncy Tee, launched in May 2026. A blend of ultra-smooth Pima cotton and NEOLAST, the shirt retains its fit and softness for longer, and will be available in the Asia–Pacific region from July 2026.
“Under Armour has a good story to tell,” Pestridge says. “This story is just like a second chapter and hopefully when we look back, the third chapter will be even better. We’re building this thing for the long-term.”
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