The post-95 generation Prince Anta joins the Arc’teryx board of directors

In mid-October, Arc’teryx’s parent company Amer Sports welcomed a new director, Ding Shaoxiang, who was born in 1995.

Many people are unfamiliar with this name, but his other identity is important enough – the son of Ding Shizhong, chairman of the board of directors of Anta Group.

This is not an ordinary board of directors addition. On Anta, a giant ship with annual revenue approaching 100 billion, a succession test that has been brewing for nearly ten years is quietly opening the most critical page.

1. Ten billion trader

Let’s talk about Ding Shaoxiang first.

The outside world’s perception of him mostly stays on the label of “Prince Anta”. But few people have noticed that this post-95s generation has been working hard in the Anta system for eleven years.

In 2015, 20-year-old Ding Shaoxiang joined ANTA and gained experience in front-line positions such as retail, manufacturing, and warehousing. He also went to ITOCHU Corporation’s Hong Kong branch to learn retail operations and full industry chain management.

In 2016, Anta established a joint venture with Japan’s Descente. Before the joint venture, Descente’s annual sales in China were only 200-300 million yuan, making it a niche Japanese ski brand.

The next year, Ding Shaoxiang jumped in and served successively as the general manager of East China and the general manager of golf business, and was finally promoted to the chairman of Descente China.

In Ding Shaoxiang’s career, Descente was a key proving ground. He made two key decisions:

The first is to promote the localization of the supply chain, changing the previous situation of mainly relying on overseas supplies, and greatly shortening the replenishment cycle; the second is to adopt differentiated location selection ideas, opening stores not only based on the level of the business district, but also focusing on evaluating the urban sports atmosphere, circle density and consumption structure.

This style of play has achieved remarkable results. In 2025, Descente’s China terminal sales will exceed 10 billion, becoming Anta Group’s third 10-billion brand after its main brand and FILA.

It took Ding Shaoxiang less than nine years from officially taking over the business in 2017 to breaking through tens of billions.

How tough is this score? Let’s put it this way, in the domestic sportswear industry, the number of traders who can turn a foreign high-end brand from zero to tens of billions can be counted on one hand. Ding Shaoxiang did it before he was thirty.

At the beginning of this year, he took over the high-end women’s sports brand MAIA ACTIVE. This brand has been involved in controversy due to the spokesperson incident and is in a period of adjustment.

This is a hot potato, and it is also a new test question that Ding Shizhong gave his son. You have succeeded in high-end sports, but can you do it in the women’s track?

Now, here comes the third question: to join the board of directors of Amer and upgrade from the manager of a single brand to the manager of the global brand matrix.

2. Take Control of Amer

The timing for Ding Shaoxiang to join Amer’s board of directors is very delicate.

In the first half of 2026, Amer Sports’ revenue in Greater China was US$1.201 billion and that of the Americas was US$1.046 billion. Greater China has officially surpassed the Americas and become Amer’s largest market in the world.

This is a historic turning point.

You know, when Anta took the lead in acquiring Amer in 2019, the Chinese market was still a marginal market, and Arc’teryx was still small in the country. In just seven years, Greater China has not only contributed the largest share of revenue, but its growth rate has also continued to remain above 35%.

What is more noteworthy is the change in brand structure.

Archaeopteryx reached the top, Salomon took over and went out of the circle, and Wilson quietly started to measure up on the tennis track. Amer’s brand echelon is taking shape, but questions are also arising: With so many brands and the Chinese market so important, who will coordinate them? Who will ensure that China’s experience can feed back to the world?

It was at this point that Ding Shaoxiang came in with Descente’s tens of billions methodology.

How to open a flagship store, how to operate a high-end group, how to build a localized supply chain, and how to maintain brand premium. Whether these play styles that have been proven by Descente can be copied to Arc’teryx and Salomon, or even exported to the global market, is what the board of directors is really concerned about.

Currently, in the 11-person board of directors of Amer, Anta holds 6 seats, which is more than half. Ding Shizhong himself, CFO Bi Mingwei, CEO Zheng Jie, plus Ding Shaoxiang, the core decision-makers are all their own people.

From capital acquisition to governance control, Anta has completed the second step.

3. Horse racing on different tracks

Ding Shaoxiang is not the only second generation of the Ding family to come to the stage. If you spread out Anta’s succession map, you will see a clear picture of “horse racing on different tracks”:

Ding Shaoxiang (son of Ding Shizhong): He is in charge of Descente + MAIA ACTIVE and now joins the board of directors of Amer, focusing on high-end professional sports and global assets.

Ding Sirong (son of Ding Shijia): In charge of Kolon China, it focuses on urban light outdoor tracks and is one of the fastest growing brands in the group.

Ding Siqing (daughter of Ding Shizhong): is responsible for the family investment sector and relies on Fujian Anta Investment and other platforms to carry out capital operations. Her husband is Wang Kunheng, the son of the Bama tea industry, forming a marriage tie in the Fujian business circle.

The son of the elder brother Ding Shijia lives an outdoor lifestyle, the son of the younger brother Ding Shizhong pursues professional high-end sports, and the daughter sits behind the capital. One civilized and one military, one internal and one external, a typical Fujian merchant family inheritance layout.

The resumes of the two young marshals are highly similar. They both have overseas study backgrounds, both started from grassroots stores, and both were assigned to independently operate a medium-sized overseas brand.

This is no coincidence. Brothers Ding Shizhong and Ding Shijia have been working together since the beginning of their business. In the second generation, the family tradition of “horse racing on separate tracks and resource sharing” is still continued.

This kind of training method is very common in Jinjiang enterprises. The parents know very well that it is more difficult to maintain a business than to start a business. The second generation who has not proven themselves in the market will not be able to suppress the veterans with hundreds of billions of dollars, nor can they withstand the impact of the industry cycle.

4. Anta’s second half

Observing Anta’s succession path, it is easy to think of an old question: How should Chinese family businesses be passed on?

The answers given by Jinjiang-based companies are almost unanimous: not all will be given to professional managers, and not all will be handed over to the second generation of the family. Instead, they will adopt a dual-track system of “family holding + professional managers operating + second-generation track experience”.

Ding Shizhong is in his early fifties this year, far from retirement age, but the succession planning began five or six years ago. He did not rush to push his son to an important position in the group. Instead, he put it into an independent brand and then gave it to a bigger plate.

This caution is not without reason. In the past few years, professional managers within the Anta system have experienced ups and downs several times.

Xu Yang was once regarded by the market as the successor that Ding Shizhong focused on cultivating. He was the core trader who broke through Arc’teryx and was later promoted to CEO of Anta’s main brand. In July this year, he resigned from the position. The official reason was family reasons. The market generally believed that the performance of the main brand was not as good as expected as an important background.

Yao Jian was transferred from President of Amer Greater China to Global President of Wolf Claw; the Greater China heads of Salomon and Arc’teryx were also changed several times.

The frequent transfers of core executives across sectors and emergency replacements illustrate a problem: Anta’s brand matrix is ​​expanding too fast, and top leaders who can take charge of their own affairs and guard the company for a long time are still scarce.

In this context, it becomes a logical choice to put the market-proven second generation into the more core asset management layer. The natural trust cost advantage of family blood is especially valuable during the period of corporate expansion.

But this in no way means nepotism. Ding Shaoxiang can join Amer’s board of directors only if Descente achieves tens of billions; Ding Sirong can sit firmly as the chairman of Kolon only if the brand has grown at a rapid rate for several consecutive years.

In the logic of Jinjiang businessmen, blood is the ticket, and performance is the pass.

This is very much like the four major real estate families in Hong Kong back then. The children of the family must first prove their abilities in a certain niche before they can gradually enter the core decision-making circle. Without military merit, even the eldest son cannot do it.

From Jinjiang shoe factory to a global multi-brand group, from OEM to operating top luxury outdoor brands like Arc’teryx, Anta has been on this path for thirty years.