Big (?) change at Vail Resorts

At long last Kirsten Lynch, who was the big boss at Vail Resorts, go fired as per a company’s announcement last Tuesday. 

The move that took an inordinate amount of time came after a messy ski season for the ski conglomerate, following a terrible handling of the Park City’s ski patrol strike that created an avalanche of horrible press and sent the company’s stock nosediving. 

Still, Lynch will receive a lump sum of $2,249,108, equivalent to two years of her annual salary on her official separation date.In addition, all of her unvested stock holdings in Vail Resorts will also be vested at the time of termination, so she’ll be able to stock her fridge and freezer and be just fine.  

Still, as the saying goes: “The more things change, the more they stay the same”, Rob Katz is returning to his role as CEO of Vail Resorts and finds himself inside the world he largely contributed to create. The man who is now 58, was already the company’s CEO in 2006 and served in that role until November 2021 when Lynch took over his job. 

Katz doesn’t strike me as the sharpest knife in the kitchen drawer, and if he remains asleep at the wheel instead of beginning to listen more to his customers than his board of directors, or the sycophants surrounding, he’ll be condemned to prolonging the same business culture that created its recent problems in the first place. 

Another step he should take, is hire general managers from the resort community they will be overseeing, and give them plenty of autonomy! Of course, Vail Resorts’ economies of scale might suffer and this will require a more active and capable management which might be in short supply. 

Short of that, Vail Resort will continue the death spiral that started for the global ski conglomerate.