As President of Sunice and Bobby Jones, Derek Faith brings nearly two decades of leadership, innovation, and passion for performance apparel to two of golf’s most respected brands. Based in Montreal, he oversees all facets of the company’s operations — from strategic direction and brand management to the leadership of an international sales force spanning the United States, Canada, and Europe.
Faith’s career with Sunice began over 17 years ago, and his impact on the brand’s evolution has been profound. Before stepping into the role of President, he spent six years as Vice President of Sales for North America, where he managed sales across a diverse portfolio including Sunice Golf, Ashworth Golf, AUR Golf, and Tommy Hilfiger Golf in Canada, as well as Sunice Ski throughout North America.
A defining moment in his tenure came with the Sunice 2010 Olympic retail collection, where he led sales strategy and execution in partnership with VANOC (Vancouver 2010 Licensing Committee). Under his direction, the Sunice team achieved one of the most successful sales performances among all Olympic apparel licensees worldwide — a standout achievement at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Superstore.
Beyond his work in retail and brand strategy, he has collaborated closely with the PGA Tour to design and deliver uniform programs for players participating in multiple Presidents Cup events — further cementing his reputation for excellence in golf apparel innovation and partnership building.
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You’ve been part of Sunice for more than 17 years. Looking back, what pivotal moments or decisions most shaped the evolution of Sunice into the high-performance, innovation-driven brand it is today?
The honest answer is that the pivotal decisions weren’t always the dramatic ones. Some of the most consequential choices were the ones where we said no — no to chasing trends, no to compromising our fabric standards, no to becoming just another logo on a rack.
What shaped Sunice most deeply was the relentless commitment to engineering things properly. The development of our proprietary fabric franchises — Element Shield®, Zephal Elite®, and Aerosoft® — weren’t marketing exercises. They were responses to real problems athletes were having in real conditions.
When you start there, when you build from genuine need, the product earns its credibility. That credibility compounds over time. Seventeen years in, what I’m most proud of is that the foundation laid before me was strong enough to build on, and that our team has stayed true to it.
Sunice celebrates 50 years as a leader in performance outerwear. How do you balance honoring that heritage with driving modern innovation, especially around proprietary fabric technologies?
Heritage is a starting line, not a finish line. Fifty years means we’ve been tested — at the Presidents Cup, at the top of Mt. Everest and by Olympic athletes in conditions that expose every weakness a garment can have.
That track record is real.
But the consumer doesn’t owe us their loyalty because of what we’ve done since 1976. We earn it by what we engineer today. So, the balance we try to strike is this: let the heritage give us credibility, but let the innovation give us relevance. Zephal Elite® and Element Shield® fabrics aren’t nostalgic — they’re state-of-the-art. The 50-year story gives us the right to say we know performance. The product has to prove it every season.
Sunice is trusted by Olympic athletes, PGA TOUR players, collegiate programs and serious outdoor enthusiasts. What does that broad trust across elite communities tell you about the brand’s identity and responsibility moving forward?
It tells us that performance doesn’t lie. You can’t fake it at that level. When an Olympic Freestyle Ski team relies on your product in a halfpipe, or a collegiate golfer is competing in a rain delay and their swing mechanics depend on their gear being unrestrictive and of course at the same time keeping them dry — there’s no marketing that substitutes for actual performance.
That trust is a privilege, and it comes with a clear responsibility: don’t ever let the product slip in pursuit of margin or speed to market.
The moment we compromise the technical integrity of what we make, we lose the thing that makes all the rest of it possible. That community of elite users is also our best product development partner. They tell us what works and what doesn’t in conditions we could never simulate in a lab.
How do the Sunice values of tireless innovation and commitment to perform without limitations influence your leadership style and the decisions you make when guiding product development?
Those values aren’t wall art for us — they’re decision-making filters. When a fabric supplier brings us a new material, the first question isn’t “how much does it cost?” It’s “does it perform better?”
When we’re debating whether to expand a product line or refine an existing one, we ask whether the decision moves us closer to or further from our promise to the consumer.
My leadership style is shaped by that same logic. I try to create an environment where people are rewarded for pushing further rather than settling for good enough. “Perform Without Limitations” isn’t just what we say to the consumer — it’s what I expect of the team. Tireless innovation means being genuinely uncomfortable with the status quo, even when things are going well.
Under your leadership, Sunice has expanded its presence across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. What shifts are you seeing in consumer expectations within golf, ski, and outdoor markets, and how are the brands adapting?
The most significant shift is that consumers no longer accept a trade-off between performance and style. For a long time, the implicit bargain in technical outerwear was: it works great, but you’ll look like you just came off a chairlift. That bargain is over.
The consumer who plays in our golf apparel on Saturday morning wants to wear it to lunch afterward. The skier who trusts our mountain layers wants that same aesthetic intelligence in their everyday wardrobe.
We’re adapting by building three distinct but connected product lines — Performance, Lifestyle, and Athletic — all unified by fabric technology, but designed for the full arc of how an active person actually lives. The technical credentials don’t change. The context they’re applied in has expanded enormously.
You spearheaded major uniform programs for Presidents Cup teams, as well as Sunice’s Olympic retail success in 2010 and more recently the Canadian Olympic Freestyle Ski Team. How have those partnerships shaped your vision for future collaborations across both Sunice and Bobby Jones?
Those programs taught me that elite partnerships do two things simultaneously: they validate your technology in the most demanding visible arena, and they build a story that resonates far beyond the athletes wearing the product.
When a Presidents Cup team steps onto that first tee wearing Sunice, every serious golfer watching understands what that means. It’s a proof point that no ad can manufacture.
Going forward, my vision for both Sunice and Bobby Jones is to pursue collaborations that are authentic to what each brand stands for. For Sunice, that means partnerships rooted in performance — athletes and programs where the conditions genuinely test what we make.
For Bobby Jones, it means collaborations that honor the elegance and heritage of the game while connecting with a new generation of golfers who want both craft and modernity. The through-line is always authenticity.
Sunice products are built around highly technical, performance-driven fabric franchises. How do you foresee these technologies evolving in the next 5–10 years as athlete demands, climate variability, and sustainability expectations continue to rise?
The next frontier for our fabric franchises is adaptability — materials that respond dynamically to changing conditions rather than being engineered for a single scenario.
Climate variability is real, and athletes are increasingly playing and competing across a wider range of conditions within a single outing. The Integrated Sunice Solutions system was designed with that layering versatility in mind, but we’re pushing further. On sustainability, I won’t pretend it’s a solved problem for anyone in this industry — it isn’t.
But the direction is clear, and the technical challenge of building high-performance fabrics from more responsible materials is one we take seriously. The brands that figure out how to deliver genuine performance without the environmental cost will have a significant long-term advantage. That’s a design challenge as much as a materials challenge, and it’s one our team is actively working on. Making product that lasts for decades is a first step.
The Brand Personality section describes Sunice as “adventurous, confident, and relentlessly focused on performance.” As you look ahead, where do you see the greatest opportunities for Sunice to deepen its impact among today’s skiers, golfers, and outdoor athletes?
The greatest opportunity is cultural visibility. The product has always deserved a larger audience than it’s had. For too long, Sunice was the brand that people who knew outerwear depended on — but the next generation of active consumers didn’t grow up with us the way their parents did.
Deepening our impact means building a content engine and a community presence that earns attention, not just buys it. It means putting real athletes in real conditions and letting the gear speak. It means showing a 32-year-old golfer who follows ski culture and runs marathons in January that Sunice was built for exactly the way they live.
The adventurous, confident personality of this brand is genuinely compelling — we just have to show up more consistently and more creatively in the places where that consumer already lives.
Bobby Jones remains one of golf’s most iconic lifestyle brands. How are you working to evolve Bobby Jones for the modern player and consumer while maintaining the timeless elegance that defines the brand?
Bobby Jones earned its place in golf history through an uncompromising commitment to craft and a deep respect for the game. That’s not a liability — it’s the brand’s most powerful asset.
The evolution we’re pursuing is about bringing that same commitment into the aesthetic and functional expectations of today’s golfer, without diluting what makes Bobby Jones irreplaceable.
The modern player cares about fit, technical performance, and versatility — they want pieces that look as refined at the 19th hole as they do on the first tee.
We’re meeting that expectation by elevating the technical quality of the fabrics and construction while staying true to the clean, timeless design language the brand is known for. Bobby Jones doesn’t need to chase trends. It needs to be the brand that makes trends feel temporary.
When you look ahead 10 years, what is your vision for Sunice and will Bobby Jones continue to influence the golf and outdoor markets? What innovations or expansions excite you most about the future of both brands?
Ten years from now, I want Sunice to be the brand that fundamentally changed how the performance apparel category thinks about the relationship between technical innovation and everyday life.
Not a niche player for hardcore skiers and serious golfers — but the definitive choice for anyone who takes their sport seriously and refuses to leave that performance mindset at the trailhead or the 18th green.
For Bobby Jones, the vision is to reclaim and extend its position as the gold standard of golf lifestyle — a brand that new generations discover and immediately understand has always belonged in their game.
What excites me most is that both brands have the heritage, the technology, and the team to do exactly that. We’re not building from scratch. We’re unlocking something that was always there.
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For more info on Sunice Sports: Performance Apparel for an Active Life, click HERE.
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