The leader in developing innovative solutions for the textile, apparel, and personal care industries announced on Thursday the appointment of Yafu Qiu, chairman of The Lycra Company, and Julien Born, chief commercial officer of The Lycra Company, as co-chief executive officers.

Effective April 1, 2021, the appointments follows the retirement of David Trerotola and is intended to help the company better implement its strategic development plan for the next five years and bring greater operational focus. 

Born, currently the company’s chief commercial officer, will serve as co-CEO and lead the overall operations of the company and implement its ambitious growth vision. He joined the business in 2007 and, since 2018, led the company’s apparel business, where he managed the global commercial organization, helped strengthen R&D and innovation capabilities, and oversaw manufacturing assets. Prior, he had a diverse 24-year career spent in the U.S,, Europe and Asia, as both an executive in large multinational companies and as a business owner of a full-service corporate licensing agency.

Meanwhile, Qiu, in addition to continuing as chairman of The Lycra Company, will focus his co-CEO role on the company’s relationships with key stakeholders, board governance matters, strategic planning, and capital structure adjustments, including the strategy and timing of an initial public offering.

“The board has appointed Julien as The Lycra Company’s next CEO,” said Qiu. “I am confident that Julien understands the opportunities and challenges facing the business and we are fully committed to supporting him and the entire leadership team on the new developments and performance growth of The Lycra Company to help The Lycra Company realize its full potential in 2021 and beyond.”

“The Lycra Company is faced with many new challenges in a fast-developing world,” added Qiu. “We are taking this opportunity to appoint Mr. Born and other new management team members to work on a new strategy to further build our brand franchises, expand manufacturing capacity, develop more impactful innovations with our global value-chain partners, lead the industry in sustainability, and accelerate our digital transformation.”