On’s New COO Could Expand Use of Robots in Shoe Production


On said Tuesday that Sam Wenger is stepping down as chief operating officer after eight years at the company.

The Roger Federer-backed sneaker brand has named chief innovation officer Scott Maguire to take on the new dual role of chief innovation and operating officer, starting Jan. 1, 2026. He joined On in April. Previously, he was CEO of Specialized Bicycle Components and before that was chief operating officer at Dyson, according to his LinkedIn page.

A Bloomberg story said Maguire will likely look to scale up the brand’s Lightspray robots, which he is already overseeing. The robots are being used to make high-end marathon sneakers.

In an interview with Footwear News in July, On’s three co-founders Caspar Coppetti, David Allemann and Olivier Bernhard discussed the brand’s new LightSpray factory for footwear production in Zurich. The technology uses a robot arm and 1.5 kilometers of filament to produce ultra-light one-piece running shoe uppers in three minutes. The highly-efficient process saves both space and time, minimizes waste and produces an upper with 75 percent fewer carbon emissions than On’s other racing shoes.

On has over 1,100 people employed in Zurich, with more than 300 focused on research and development to drive innovation in product and materials development and design. The brand is planning other similar production facilities worldwide.

The brand’s CEO Martin Hoffman said in August on a conference call after posting second quarter earnings results that the brand had implemented selective price increases in the U.S. in early July to counter some tariff increases. While the company posted a net loss of 40.9 million Swiss francs, it also saw net sales increase 38 percent to 749.2 million Swiss francs.

That increase gave the company confidence to raise its 2025 net sales guidance to up 31 percent year-over-year, versus its prior estimate of up 28 percent, even with the impact of a 20 percent incremental tariff on imports to the U.S. from Vietnam. Despite now paying a total of 40 percent duty for imports to the U.S. from Vietnam — a stacked rate consisting of an existing 20 percent duty plus the 20 percent incremental tariff — and 39 percent for imports from Indonesia, Hoffman said he wasn’t worried.

“As a premium brand and as a fast-growing brand, we have multiple opportunities to compensate for these impacts of our cost sold,” he told investors at the time, noting that investments into innovative products come at higher price points that also drive more gross profit margin. He also said the company last month still hadn’t even spoken to its retail and factory partners yet about mitigation efforts, an option it could still choose to do later on.

The sneaker brand also has expansion opportunities beyond footwear into apparel, which can shift its business model to a cross between a sports brand and a fashion brand. Brand ambassador Zendaya expanded her work with the company to include designing an apparel collection that launched this month. The Swiss brand also signed on singer Burna Boy earlier this month as its “clubhouse president,” with the collaboration building On’s Clubhouse Nights, its initiative to combine tennis, music and art through a global event series in New York, Miami and Paris.



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