Cheddar News correspondent Chloe Aiello goes on a Walk and Talk with Erin Longin, general manager at run/train business unit at PUMA Group, to discuss career advancement for women, climbing the career ladder, and trends in the running and training space. 

<div class="block">Cheddar News correspondent Michelle Castillo joins Erin Longin, general manager at the run/train business unit at PUMA Group, for a Walk and Talk to discuss career advancement for women, climbing the career ladder, and trends in the running and training space. </div>
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Wake Up With Cheddar

Walk and Talk: Erin Longin of PUMA on Trends in the Running Space

Let's switch gear. Summer has arrived. Are you crushing your fitness goals or do you need some new inspiration to get you back on track? Michelle Castillo caught up with Erin Long and general manager runs slash train business unit at Puma to dive into trains in the running space, learn how they're committing to women in their space. Here's a look at our walk and talk brought to you by JP Morgan Chase. Thanks so much for joining us. Er, so who has made a huge push for women in the products, especially in the running category? So why make this bet at this time? We had the opportunity to reset our whole running strategy a couple of years ago. And you know, one of the things we did to start was really look at the running consumer base in a lot of detail. And we saw that more women are running than ever before. More women are finishing races than men around the world. And that's a big shift because it was typically very male dominated. So we felt that women were really the future of running and we wanted to make sure that as we on running strategy that that was a key component of what we focused on. Now, women are really under represented in sports marketing. So what is doing to change that narrative? Yes, I mean, we agreed with you when we looked at the space and you know, again, with this reset, we were able to really focus on signing female athletes first. Certainly we signed a lot of men as well, but we really took a female first strategy. Molly Seal was one of the first female distance runners that came on board with us. And a lot of women have followed in her footsteps since then. So speaking of women, you've said in previous interviews that two of the biggest influences in your career were your mother and your grandmother. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Yeah, I grew up with two very strong women. They showed me that women can have full time jobs, they can run the house, they can be mothers, you know, really present mothers and have still a career the way that men do. My grandmother, for example, was running the household, cooking all the dinners, you know, taking care of the kids, having a full time job investing in real estate. And they just show me that it is possible for women to really have it all. Now, you are interesting because you had the majority of your career at. So tell me a little bit about how to have longevity in one company. Yeah, I mean, I think it's important to find a company where your values match and that really allows you the freedom to do what you love for me is very entrepreneurial. It allows, you know, freedom to really drive change and impact and that's really with what I wanted to do and how I wanted to behave every day at work. So my advice would be to find a company that really allows you to amplify all of your strength and your values. Now, if you're at a company and you want them to recognize your worth and go up that promotion track, what advice do you have? People ask me this a lot and I always just say, find, find the extra, find the extra thing that you can do. We all have job descriptions. We all have to check the boxes of what's expected, but finding ways that you can drive additional change or go above and beyond, I think works anywhere. So tell me a little bit more about the biggest trends in the run train space. What are we really going to see in 2023? Yes, I think in 23 you know, we're really focused on bringing innovations for that everyday runner. We saw so many more people picking up exercise and fitness coming out of COVID and we really want to make sure the innovations aren't only for the competitive space in the race day products. So this year, we're launching a brand new product called the Forever Run Nitro. And it's really focused on bringing innovative solutions to that everyday running consumer. Well, I'm really excited to check it out and we're at the flagship right now here in New York City. So let's go inside and take a look and thanks to Michelle Castillo with Erin Longin General manager, run slash train business unit at Puma. And this walk and talk was brought to you by JP Morgan Chase.