Gary Champion (above) and Bob Infantino worked together for nearly two decades, building the Clarks shoe operations in North America into a roughly $800 million-a-year business under Infantino’s leadership.

They became close friends. And now they’re fierce competitors.

Champion returned last month to Clarks Americas’ headquarters as its president after about seven years away.

Infantino, meanwhile, is now chief executive at the Rockport Group, a company created last year by combining Rockport Co. and New Balance’s dress and casual shoe businesses.

“Now, we’re competitors, but we’re still good buddies,’’ Champion says.

Champion was working at Earth Footwear in Waltham before Tom O’Neill, chairman of Clarks’s British parent company C&J Clark, recruited him back into the fold to run the US-based operations. “Walking back into these doors was quite emotional,’’ Champion says.

Champion wants to build on the interest in classic Clarks shoes, such as Wallabees, with younger buyers. Eventually, he would like consumers to be able to customize shoes with their own designs.

He also will lead the company through a big move: The nearly 400 people at the Clarks office in the Newton village of Upper Falls will decamp for a Boston Properties development in Waltham this fall.

Clarks will be leaving the city just as Rockport is arriving. The New Balance affiliate expects to relocate to West Newton from Reebok’s headquarters in Canton in the fall. (Reebok parent Adidas had previously owned Rockport.)

But Champion and Infantino will still run into each other. They are neighbors in Newton’s Waban section and regularly play golf together.

“The older you get, you don’t build those kind of friendships [that often],’’ Champion says. — JON CHESTO

Fund managers face off The intense rivalry among Boston’s mutual fund firms has spilled onto the ice again.

Teams from Natixis, Eaton Vance, Putnam Investments and MFS faced off in their own informal version of the Beanpot Tournament during the past two weeks. Dubbed the “Finance Beanpot,’’ the players use it to raise funds for the Massachusetts Soldiers Legacy Fund.

MFS edged out Natixis in the final championship game on Thursday at the Steriti Rink in the North End. MFS managers Ryan Mullen and Sam Devens attribute their success on the ice to their culture of collaboration — and a few good hires along the way.

But Natixis leads on the fund-raising front, with about $15,000 raised.

John Nickodemus, Putnam’s national sales manager, says the games are a great way to “rally the troops’’ in the city’s fund industry for a good cause. This time, they raised more than $37,000.

The Finance Beanpot started last year, as an outgrowth of informal Thursday night games that these and other teams were already playing. (MFS won last year as well.)

Many of the participants played competitively in college. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that there are a lot of ex-hockey players in this industry,’’ says Craig Brandon, informal captain of Eaton Vance’s team and a fund manager there. “You need to have a competitive nature to be in this industry.’’ — JON CHESTO

Cranberry rescue force

With cranberry growers in Wisconsin and Quebec flooding the US market with little red berries, Massachusetts officials have taken action. The Cranberry Industry Revitalization Task Force launched by Governor Charlie Baker, met for the first time last week at the UMass Cranberry Station in East Wareham to discuss ways to help save a historic Massachusetts food crop.

Massachusetts ceded the number one cranberry growing state status to Wisconsin in the mid-1990s, but in recent years, Massachusetts production also fell behind Quebec, where many growers use higher yield cranberry plants that produce as much as five times the number of berries as many Massachusetts-grown heritage varieties.

Brian Wick, executive director at the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers Association, said growers in Quebec offer a bigger style of cranberry that is better-suited for dried cranberries, which have been driving industry growth in recent years.

The 18-member task force is cochaired by Matt Beaton, secretary of energy and environmental affairs, and John Lebeaux, commissioner of agricultural resources, and includes Dan Crocker, from Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc., and Matt Beaton from Sure-Cran Services Inc. (no relation to the other Matt Beaton).

The group’s to-do list includes helping existing cranberry farmers access money to renovate their bogs as well as finding help for farmers who are considering closing operations and are unable to sell their land.

Some farmers “can’t get loans because they’re losing money,’’ Wick said. “They’re in a tough situation.’’ — MEGAN WOOLHOUSE

Pledge crosses the pond

Startup accelerator MassChallenge wants its hundreds of alumni to pay it forward.

The Boston-based startup incubator announced a partnership with UK-based Founders Pledge to encourage its 835 alumni to pledge at least 2 percent of their proceeds from going public or being acquired.

The initiative is a spinoff of London nonprofit Founders Forum, which encourages philanthropy from entrepreneurs, no matter what stage they may be at.

Since the announcement last week, a number of pledges have already been made by several international MassChallenge alumni, including Nicola Gammon (founder and chief executive of gardening care site Shoot), James Roy Poulter (co-founder and chief executive at food-delivery site Pronto), David Hellard of workspace finder Zipcube.com and Danilo Leao founder of cattle-tracking app BovControl.

MassChallenge, which awards no-strings-attached grants and office space to startups, was itself designated by Founders Pledge as a charity that can receive donations. — KATHELEEN CONTI

Can’t keep a secret? Tell us. E-mail Bold Types at boldtypes@globe.com.