It’s evidence of a level of ubiquity that German shoe company Birkenstock never desired. The shoemaker has been deploying teams of undercover investigators equipped with covert cameras into what they claim are factories producing knockoffs as part of their war on fakes.
Birkenstock’s CEO Oliver Reichert is aggressive. “We don’t just punish the marketplaces or the resellers. We really go to the factories. Turkey, Philippines, China, wherever.”
“Sounds like you’re running special ops,” said correspondent Seth Doane.
“Yes, but that’s necessary.”
His unconventional approach is clear at their Munich headquarters. Doane said, “You were sitting at your desk listening, at times blasting, music. It’s not what you’d expect from a CEO.”
“Probably I’m not the average CEO,” Reichert said. “I never tried to be average in anything.”
Additionally, Birkenstock has shown that it is not typical. If you haven’t noticed, Birkenstocks are incredibly popular right now, showing off not only the least fashionable among us, but also models and famous people’s toes (or, yes, socks). Unquestionably, Birkenstock is experiencing a moment that has been building for almost 250 years.
And “Birks” have advanced significantly since their heyday as a hippie mainstay.
Since 2009, when he took over this once-family-run company, Reichert has made an effort to infuse it with a “startup” energy. He declared, “I don’t want to have this. If you have such a heritage and such a history, the hazard is to wake up in your own museum.
When it comes to requests for brand collaboration, he is brutal. They receive a lot. “We say no eight times out of ten,”
