In 1990 Michael Greenberg was the national sales manager for L.A. Gear, which had taken the market by storm after Greenberg’s father, Robert Greenberg, and his partners launched the brand in 1983. Seven year later, sales had surpassed $800 million annually and the company’s celebrity endorsement roster ranged from Joe Montana to Michael Jackson. L.A. Gear helped invent and cement the fashion/sport lifestyle category.
Like his father, the younger Greenberg had a nose for big brand potential. In fact, he dropped out of college, in 1984, to join L.A. Gear as an account representative. He got no special treatment. He worked his way up the company ladder to West Coast regional sales manager and then national sales manager.
When L.A. Gear ran into ownership issues a year later, the Greenbergs departed but didn’t stew. They picked up right where they’d left off and launched Skechers in 1992, a company that recently passed $8 billion in annual sales and now ranks as the world’s third largest athletic footwear brand. Skechers uses the same fashion/sport lifestyle formula L.A. Gear did, only on a vastly bigger and broader scale. It’s that rare breed of brand that speaks to the masses across nearly all footwear categories, ages, and demographics. It’s the Dallas Cowboys of footwear—America’s shoe brand.
“Our initial thought was that Skechers would be a ‘little’ company, but that thought lasted about five minutes,” Greenberg says. “We have too much passion and energy to think small. By the end of our second year, we had sold almost two million pairs.”
Still, Greenberg says the initial goal was modest: deliver comfortable, stylish, quality, innovative footwear, beginning with a Sport Utility collection for men. “But then women started wearing the styles, and kids were asking for them,” he says. The more, the merrier. Skechers responded by introducing new shoes styles and continued to gain customers. “Instead of offering approximately 100 styles and selling a couple million pairs, we’re now selling around 300 million units a year,” Greenberg says. “Our product line has expanded to include thousands of styles, covering both lifestyle and high-performance footwear.”
Greenberg sensed huge potential early on. Each first in the company’s journey, he notes, was a clear indicator of its growth potential. That included the first TV ad in 1993, which marked the beginning of Skechers’ broader marketing efforts. Then, in 1995, Skechers opened its first retail store in its hometown of Manhattan Beach, CA, and expanded internationally with stores in Tokyo, London, and Paris in 2001. Currently, the company operates more than 5,000 flagships in more than 120 countries on six continents, each with the same brand-specific look and feel. Plans are to surpass 10,000 stores in the next few years. Indeed, Skechers is fast becoming the world’s shoe brand.
Greenberg counts going public in 1999 and surpassing $1 billion in annual sales in 2005 as key growth milestones. “It felt like this was just the beginning. We have so much potential, the sky is the limit,” Greenberg says, citing inclusion in the Fortune 500 list and marking 25 years on the New York Stock Exchange as two more recent milestones. The latter included the team ringing the opening bell, a bucket list moment for Greenberg. “Still, as we were ringing that bell, I was thinking, we have so much more to do. I can’t wait to get back to work,” he says.
A sense of family is another key ingredient to Skechers’ success, Greenberg says. “In my experience, there really is no other brand quite like Skechers, nor a company that’s as globally connected while maintaining a close-knit, family-like atmosphere. No matter where I travel in the world, I know I’ll find someone I can call a close friend. This is a testament to the way we connect with our team members and partners, as well as how we treat our customers. This combination of global reach and personal touch is what makes Skechers truly special in the industry.”
The family approach extends to Skechers’ extensive charitable efforts. For example, the Skechers Foundation and annual Skechers Pier to Pier Friendship Walk has raised more than $28 million for public education and children with special needs. Greenberg also helped found the Friendship Foundation, a non-profit mentoring organization. Its future Friendship Campus, the Greenberg Family/Skechers Center, will offer job training, skill building, and continued education for young adults with varying abilities. The non-profit Harrison Greenberg Memorial Foundation, founded to honor Greenberg’s late son, is dedicated to restoring and protecting Manhattan Beach’s Roundhouse Aquarium.
In addition, the BOBS from Skechers philanthropic brand, in partnership with Petco Love, has surpassed $12 million in donations to save and support more than 2.2 million shelter pets across the North America, the UK, and Japan since launching in 2015. Skechers also regularly holds adoption events at its stores and recently introduced the Paws for a Cause Design Scholarship, which gives consumers a chance to wear design students’ shoe patterns and recognize their personal shelter pet stories. BOBS has also donated new shoes to 16 million children in need globally. Skechers has also donated millions to disaster relief funds, including for 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, 2023’s Maui wildfires, and last January’s L.A. wildfires.
Skechers is famous for Robert Greenberg’s brand-building mantra: “Unseen, untold, unsold.” His son is a devout disciple of that approach. Skechers, a young company at 33, is just getting started, he says. “Not much has changed in terms of our core mission, only now we’re operating on a much larger scale,” Greenberg says. That’s fitting for a company whose name was early ’90s teen lingo for someone who can’t sit still. •
