MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif., Nov 13 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) — True Religion Apparel, Inc., announced that the Board of Directors has appointed Michael Buckley as its new Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. Mr. Buckley was previously President of True Religion Apparel from 2006 to 2010. He will be responsible for developing and implementing the future vision and roadmap for True Religion. Mr. Buckley will report to the Board of Directors of the Company.
Michael Buckley is a leading retail and consumer products executive with over 30 years’ successful industry experience both domestically and internationally in growing brands and creating value. He most recently was Chief Executive Officer of Differential Brands Group (renamed Centric Brands upon the acquisition of Global Brands Group) a NASDAQ publicly traded company. Differential owned the brands Hudson Jeans, Robert Graham and Swims. Prior to Differential, from 2011-2016 he was Chief Executive Officer of Robert Graham Designs until its sale to Differential Brands Group for $180 million. Prior to Robert Graham, from 2006-2010 as President of True Religion Apparel, sales grew from $100 million to over $300 million, EBITDA from $30 million to over $90 million and market cap on NASDAQ tripled to $850 million. The retail platform expanded from 1 to 100 stores, the company expanded its product line to include t-shirts, woven shirts, knit tops, outerwear and a number of licenses including footwear, fragrances, eyewear, swimwear, and accessories. In both 2008 and 2009 True Religion was ranked the #1 most profitable US publicly traded apparel company out of all US publicly traded apparel companies, as measured by after tax profit margin.