Rapha CEO William Kim has announced that he will step down less than a year after brand founder Simon Mottram left the post, which he has headed for 17 years.

Kim, who takes over in early 2022, has said that personal reasons were at the core of his decision to leave Rapha and that he plans to return to Korea with his family.

Kim was formerly CEO of All Saints and held senior positions at Burberry and Gucci before being officially appointed to the Rapha Racing Ltd. board on March 7, 2022.

"As you can imagine, this has been a very difficult decision for me. Over the past year, I have grown to love the Rapha brand, which is a great business, a unique culture with great people and a tight-knit community [...]"

He has been a great friend of Rapha for many years.

He will be succeeded by François Conversy and Daniel Brumir, who will immediately become co-managing directors of the British apparel brand. Simon Mottram also remains on the board of directors and is named as a director and company secretary of the company.

Convery was previously Rapha's chief brand marketing officer and Brumir was the brand's chief commercial product officer.

"We are both equally passionate about Rapha's brand, corporate culture, and values," the two managing directors said in a joint statement."

"Rapha has created a market and benchmark for performance and style cycling apparel and is well positioned to continue to expand and inspire the world to live life on a bicycle.

According to company information (opens in new tab), Rapha Racing Ltd had revenues of £84,661,000 and EBITDA of £10,923,000 for the year ending January 30, 2022.

In recent years, Rapha has sponsored the World Tour team EF Education-Easypost and more recently EF Education-TIBCO-SVB, and in 2022 ended its long-term sponsorship of the women's World Tour team Canyon-Sram In 2022, the company ended its long-term sponsorship of the women's World Tour team Canyon-Sram.