Today we’d like to introduce you to Paul Grangaard.
Paul , let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
During my junior year in college (in 1979), I had a life-changing opportunity to study in Florence, Italy, which gave me a deep interest in art, architecture, the Renaissance, history, language, design and artisanship. I came back to school and took more course in those areas in my senior year. But when I graduated, I stayed with my original plan of following my dad’s footsteps into the banking business and I headed to a job at The First National Bank of Chicago and also, at night, pursued an MBA in Finance at the University of Chicago. After graduation from the UofC, First Chicago executives sent me to their branch in Frankfurt, Germany, which refreshed and deepened my interests in all those things from school in Italy. My wife and I returned to the States to raise a family three years later. I stayed in finance, although I ended up focusing on financing restaurant companies, which only thrive when they’re creative and exciting. Then there came a ten year hiatus when I was a senior executive at our investment banking and brokerage firm — I was learning leadership but not scratching my creative itch often enough. Ultimately, I left that firm and joined ex-colleagues at a Private Equity firm that invested in acquisitions of middle market businesses. Two years into that new job, our firm bought Allen Edmonds, the men’s shoe company and one of the last remaining U.S. manufacturers of shoes (less than 2% of the shoes bought in the U.S. these days are made here). A year into the AE investment, things had deteriorated significantly, the young CEO became frustrated and left, and I jumped in as “Interim CEO” to lead the company through a bankruptcy-like capital restructuring. That was 9 years ago… and I’m still here. With my team, we turned the company around quickly and have now enjoyed six years of consecutive record sales and profits. We now have over 70 stores open around the country and a burgeoning e-commerce business. The company was sold in December 2016 to Caleres, Inc. a NYSE listed company and one of the world’s largest shoe companies. It has been a good run.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I’m a very lucky guy and I was given a lot of advantages at birth. But nobody gets a smooth road and achieves much of anything important. Yes, there were many struggles along the way. Doing business in Germany in my mid-20s, when I was also learning the language at the same time, was stressful. Investment banking is a highly competitive business and when you lose deals to smart people at other firms, you take it personally. Then I had a bit of a midlife crisis in my 40s when I realized I wasn’t enjoying my job content much, only the people I was doing it with. For the past 30 years, I’ve traveled for work way more than I ever intended, missing more of my kids’ childhoods than I planned. And when I came to this job at Allen Edmonds, I had to deal with some second-guessing (it was justifiable since I had never before worked in the industry or been a CEO) that caused me to second-guess myself. I had to restructure our leadership team, I had to take new hire, new product and new market risks and deal with extended uncertainty about the results. And I failed at things along the way. Then, 10 years ago, my beloved golf game — long a source of enjoyment and chances for camaraderie with friends — suddenly fell totally apart and became extremely frustrating and humiliating. A small thing in the grand scheme perhaps, but not to me. And yet, I’d go through it all again (our family life is great, so I avoided any setback there). Teddy Roosevelt’s famous “Here’s to the man in the arena” quote comes to mind. So does the best high school valedictorian speech I ever heard as a school board member and parent — the young man urged his classmates not to sit by idly. “Do stuff!” was his great and cogent line.
Allen Edmonds – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Allen Edmonds was founded along the shores of Lake Michigan in 1922 as a men’s dress shoe manufacturer. Despite most of the industry moving jobs and production offshore starting in the 1970s, we’re still making great American men’s shoes in Wisconsin 95 years later. Less than 2% of the shoes bought in the U.S. in 2016 were made in this country; yet we’re still here and thriving, not just surviving. With June’s new store openings, we’ll have 75 stores in major metropolitan areas all around the country — coast to coast and border to border. We have a major e-commerce website that’s more and more how customers discover our brand, particularly younger men, and do business with us. Many of our stores now sell 20% or more of their revenues in products that go “beyond the shoe” — from belts and leather briefcases and duffle bags, to sport coats, to casual and dress shirts, to windbreakers and winter coats. We’re a “Men’s Lifestyle Brand” company now, with a product line that fits our Allen Edmonds Man’s lifestyle at his work and outside of work. All our products, and especially our Timeless Classic shoes, are known for great styling, superior quality and longevity that are offered at accessible pricing and surrounded by the best customer service in retailing today. That equation delivers incredible value to our customer. We’re authentic American and we have great American heritage, which is what we’re most proud of and what sets us apart. We’re also proud that our success has allowed us to increase U.S. employment almost by 100% since 2010 and that’s hundreds of jobs.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I’m not a “bottom line” guy in the traditional sense, although success for me does get down to just one summarizing word — people. When our customers tell us our brand is unique today in how great it makes them feel as a customer. When our employees feel that they work for a great company and really enjoy doing it. When I see our products on impressive men of all ages in the many airports and other public places I frequent each year. When an American production line worker tells me (as one did a while ago) that getting hired by Allen Edmonds and having a job here is the difference between his daughter being able to go to college and not being able to go to college. And when friends tell me that they see all that we’ve done at the company to become a lifestyle brand and they like it all. That’s what I consider to be “success”. But it’s only success to me when I also have a great family and productive kids who still like to have me around to play golf together, hang out at the lake and go to concerts and shows together, and when there are charities in my community who consider my wife and me among their strong supporters. “Success” to me is a constellation of positively impacted people, not a bottom line.
Contact Info:
- Address: 201 E. Seven Hills Road
Port Washington, WI 53074 - Website: www.allenedmonds.com
- Phone: 800-235-2348
- Email: eservice@allenedmonds.com
- Instagram: @allenedmonds
- Facebook: Facebook.com/allenedmonds
- Twitter: #allenedmonds
Image Credit:
Allen Edmonds
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