Rapha Appoints Scott Mellin to Its Board: Thirty Years at The North Face and Salomon Join a Cycling Brand Reinventing Itself for LA 2028
Rapha has appointed former outdoor-industry executive Scott Mellin to its board of directors, the British cycling apparel brand announced on Wednesday morning. The move, which had been rumoured since the start of the year, marks the clearest signal yet that the Walthamstow-based company is accelerating the transformation of its product, partnerships and sponsorship strategy in the run-up to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.
Mellin joins the Rapha board after more than three decades inside two of the most recognisable names in outdoor performance apparel. A long career at The North Face took him through senior roles in running, alpinism and brand development, before a move to Salomon where he ran global product and marketing for the French footwear and equipment manufacturer. He has sat on multiple non-executive boards in the North American outdoor sector since stepping back from full-time executive roles in 2023, and has been an active road cyclist and cyclocross racer for twenty-five years.
His arrival at Rapha, the brand behind the kit of numerous WorldTour privateers and the title sponsor of several development programmes, is understood to reflect the new strategic priorities of owners RZC Investments. The Walton family office, which bought Rapha in 2017, spent the first half-decade of its ownership quietly consolidating. The last two years have been more ambitious: new flagship stores, a greatly expanded women's line, a complete re-platform of Rapha Performance Trialwear, a high-profile UCI World Championships kit partnership, and the revival of the Rapha Nocturne criterium series after a long pause.
The 2028 Los Angeles Olympics — and the associated explosion of cycling visibility in the United States — have been named internally at Rapha as a once-in-a-decade opportunity. Cycling on the Californian coast, gravel racing in the Sierras, the rapid growth of women's road racing across North America and the cultural centrality of cycling to the Californian outdoor identity are all factors that the company has been exploring. Mellin, born and raised in Colorado and based for much of his career in Boulder, brings the precise combination of outdoor-industry credibility and North American cultural fluency that Rapha is chasing.
"I have been a Rapha customer since their first catalogue arrived in the United States in 2005," Mellin said in the statement accompanying his appointment. "I believe this brand has the chance to do for the next generation of riders what Patagonia did for the climbing community in the 1990s — to become the unmistakable identity of a sport that is about to grow faster than most people realise. I want to be a small part of that." He takes up the non-executive role with immediate effect, and will attend his first full Rapha board meeting in London next week.
Rapha's chief executive, Fran Millar, described the appointment as "a deliberate step into the next five years of this company." Millar, formerly the chief executive of Brompton and a long-time British Cycling figure, has been publicly candid about the commercial challenges facing premium cycling apparel in a market that has cooled considerably since the Covid-era boom. The company has been reorganising its wholesale business, simplifying its product architecture and experimenting with direct partnerships with leading WorldTour riders in a way that reflects a broader industry trend toward rider-endorsed rather than team-sponsored kit arrangements.
Industry observers see Mellin's arrival as consistent with Rapha's stated ambition to broaden its footprint into running and trail sport without diluting its core cycling identity. The North Face and Salomon are perhaps the two companies in modern outdoor retail that have handled that precise balancing act most successfully, and Mellin's fingerprints are on both stories. "Rapha is a cycling brand and will remain a cycling brand," Millar added. "But we are also a performance brand, and the people who ride our jerseys are the same people who run, hike and race on gravel. Scott understands that better than anyone I have met in this industry."
The appointment comes against a broader backdrop of consolidation and repositioning in the cycling apparel and equipment market. Continental's launch of the 35mm GP5000 S TR on the eve of Paris-Roubaix, SRAM's Red AXS 2026 groupset rollout, and the arrival of American investment across British and European cycling brands all speak to a sector preparing itself for a new commercial era. Rapha's decision to put an American outdoor-sport veteran on its board is a small but deliberate move in that direction — and a reminder that the company with the most recognisable pink sleeves in cycling is thinking about its next decade, not just its next season.