The CEO of Santoni discusses the family business and his attention to details
Santoni shoes are one of the world’s finest purveyors of luxury footwear. Much of its success was because of Giuseppe’s father, Andrea, who founded the company in 1975 and passed the legacy on to his son. Giuseppe Santoni came from a modest family who worked hard to create their vision, a vision that came from technical skill, passion, dedication and respect for people and quality. Quality is a key word here, in terms of ethics, for Santoni as a brand. It will be hard to find someone that pays more attention to shoes than its CEO. At 48 years old, Giuseppe Santoni has a lot to say about the early days and the success of the company 40 years on.
We met Giuseppe during our visit to the Santoni headquarters in Corridonia, Italy and we had the following chat.
It’s been 40 years. How is Santoni today and what are you aiming to achieve?
I joined the company at a very young age, and was 21 when I became CEO. At the beginning the company was very small, with my father Andrea starting it at the garage of our house. We lived up-stairs and so I basically grew up in the factory. My passion for his work started at a young age, and I was always interested in this world, aiming to become what I am today. I never thought about becoming anything else, like a policeman or a fireman. Together, with the family, we created Santoni, although the hardest part was to develop the company from an excellent manufacturer to the luxury brand that it is today.
Family businesses have pros and cons. What are these for you?
My father started the business from nothing and was able to create a successful company in a few years. To him, it’s impossible to make a good business without knowing the craft behind it. People have different skills. My father is very technical, whereas I am very much market and brand orientated. My father gave me the power to make decisions when I was 21 as the new CEO, however I always asked him for his opinions. I am the son who always listened to his parents, but I grew up with my own ideas. Sometimes I made decisions where my parents didn’t agree, but they trusted me.
Andrea and Giuseppe Santoni
My father is a real entrepreneur with a bright vision, he was not just a man who could make shoes. When I was 17 my father didn’t speak English and he told me he wanted to go to New York for a fashion show, asking me to join him. He felt that if we both went then something could happen. I spoke twenty per cent English at that time, but I learned immediately, together with understanding the technicalities of the business. Now, I can control the company from a technical aspect. In this kind of company, you can’t just be a CEO that came from an Ivy League school, you need to know the products because quality is involved.
How involved are you with designing?
I’m not the designer and I can’t draw, but I approve every shoe you see. First I give directions, I say what I like and what I want. I tell people my vision, my direction, where I want to go, what I want to achieve and they create it. Like a tailor making a suit. I create Santoni’s vision around our DNA. I have a passion for details, quality, luxury and beauty, and I pride the company on these things. I tell my team, we don’t make shoes, we make objects of desire which create an emotion for each customer. You need to think of something desirable, not necessary. You don’t need luxury to survive but you need luxury to live.
We live in a world where everything is fast paced and digital. How hard is it to maintain tradition?
Keeping quality is part of our insurance policy, and without it I don’t know how we can survive. We are not a fashion brand, but we are a quality brand. When you are a fashion brand you can sell a name and people buy a name, however, in our case, people buy the product not just the name. Ladies tend to throw fashion away, but you don’t throw quality shoes away, you keep them. They are timeless.
Tell us about your Spring Summer 2017 collection.
The direction was ethnic, going for African and Moroccan styles. It’s a sophisticated style that is also elegant. They are light colours and there’s a lot of material work with special designs. There are different elements of Moroccan culture, such as a basket that we replicated as a pattern to put on our shoes.
Tell us about the Santoni man and woman?
Both are very independent, they are not fashion forward but they are trendsetters. They have their own style, and they come from families where luxury, beauty and quality are part of their DNA. They have passion for quality and details.
You have your own training school, tell us about that.
We were forced to create this because the quality of work that we have at our workshops is not common like any other company. The only way to create the best workers are to train them. We have to give them a training period where they are familiar with the Santoni quality, atmosphere, philosophy and techniques. People that work for Santoni are special, they are not just workers, but rather artists. This training is imperative to the outcome of the product, as during the manufacturing process a pair of shoes is being touched by 100 people, so if you don’t do your job correctly you can ruin the work of 99 other people.
How involved are you with your commitment to society and the environment?
Santoni’s HQ, in Corridonia, is a small, quiet, modern town on the east coast of Italy about 250km north east of Rome. Next door to the futuristic boardroom is the factory where both men’s and women’s shoes are made using machines running on solar power. When we built the factory, I was attracted to the fact that I had a responsibility for the future. Quality is not only what you do, but how you think, with quality of life being an important element. To create something that is a vision for the future, I consider it a sign of responsibility.
Tell us about your collaboration with IWC Schaffhausen watches and Mercedes-AMG.
I have a passion for cars, and I met Mercedes-AMG people at a time when they wanted to develop themselves as a lifestyle brand. We created shoes to build a relationship between the two brands. Now it’s more developed and we are creating shoes for racing, we have shoes that are FIA approved, so they can be used on the race track.
I met Johann Rupert through a common friend. Every year they have a Richemont global summit where CEOs are invited. Usually they invite 20 people and some VIPs. In 2007, Mr Rupert asked me to talk at the summit about quality. I was honoured to be invited to speak to people at Richemont about quality. Bearing in mind this was 10 years ago, I was younger and a bit nervous. He was so pleasant and introduced me to everyone in a lovely way. He said, he had a friend who brought him a pair of shoes, and usually he goes to London to buy his shoes and spends up to £5,000 on a pair; it takes him up to two months until they stop hurting and they get comfortable. However, his friend bought him a pair of shoes and as soon as he put them on he was instantly comfortable, and they were even more beautiful than the shoes he usually wears. He explained that he didn’t understand how they were so beautiful and comfortable and so he wanted to meet me. We are friends now and he introduced me to all the CEOs at Richemont. I became friends with Bernard Fornas from Cartier, JérômeLambert who was CEO at Jaeger-LeCoultre and is now at Montblanc, and Georges Kern, among others.
Georges and I met in St. Moritz because we have a house in St. Moritz. He said he liked my style, so I thought it would be a great idea to collaborate and make straps, matching belts and matching shoes – all with the same leather. After six months Georges came to me and said he liked the idea. We started with a small number in a small selection of colours. The IWC dealers loved the straps and we began with Portofino, but the biggest number was made with the Portugieser watch. It was a huge success; people said it has a good selling point. Everyone was super excited about the quality and the colours. They launched the collection with the Pilot’s watch too, and for the ladies there are so many colours; we are now also making new colours, which are unbelievable.
Tell us about your personal style.
I am very classic, but not boring. I like quality and details, using tailors for made-to-measure suits. The beauty of tailors is that they are creators but not designers, allowing you to choose the details and be the designer yourself.
Do you have a motto?
Every morning I raise the bar. Usually I achieve what I want not because I am very good but because I work hard.
What do you dislike about yourself?
That I am not patient. I want everything immediately and I cannot wait. I would like to be more patient, although as I am getting older things are changing.
Do you have any regrets?
To be honest I don’t have any. I consider myself lucky.
How do you spend your free time?
I don’t have much free time. Before I could not afford to take time off for a vacation, however now I am 48, I realise life is like a marathon. It you want to reach the end of the marathon you can’t sprint too hard or you will never finish, you must pace yourself. Health is important to me and everyday I go to the gym in the morning, taking two hours off to workout.
How would you like people to remember you?
I am a serious person, but I am absolutely fair. I have nothing to hide. If I am happy you can see it, if I am not happy you can also see it. I am not a liar and I cannot hide my feelings. But in life it’s not always easy to be this way because life is full of compromises.
We are celebrating 10 years of A&E. Do you remember when you celebrated your first decade?
We didn’t really celebrate a decade. However, last year we turned 40 years old and I hope I will continue to have the patience, power and spirit to keep on going as I did in the past.
By Lara Mansour Sawaya
