Sustainability is no longer about doing less harm. It's about doing more good.
Jochen Zeitz
The puma... the cat... is not just about power and speed and strength... but it is also a very elegant animal. That's what we've tried to reflect in our products.
Puma is a brand deeply rooted in sporting lifestyle.
I'm a curious person, and I always like to test new waters, and I've always jumped into the cold water and then started to think about how to swim.
I picked up the phone and called Herbert Hainer, the CEO of Adidas, and said, 'Well, it's Peace Day coming up. I think it's about time after 60 years to end this feud. How about doing something together?'
Every time a new CEO came, I got a promotion till I was made CEO myself.
Be curious enough to keep an open mind to what's happening around you in society. You can look at yourself and the world at the same time.
We should bring in an environmental attitude, and I think luxury should automatically be about sustainability and quality.
I was actually accepted into medical school in Italy. But then I wanted to come back and learn medicine in Germany. And while waiting, I decided to join a business school. I figured it would be useful for doctors to know some business as well!
We're trying to find a tourism model that allows communities to thrive while business prospers.
In Africa, you can make three acres sustainable relatively easily, but 50,000 acres? It's not about picking up towels or sleeping in a tent.
Resources are being destroyed, and if you don't have resources, you can't do business.
Walking out into the bush still feels the same as when I first came to Kenya in 1989, on the day the Berlin Wall came down.
When I became CEO, I just didn't think about my age too much. I'm sure many people did think that my age mattered, but I didn't. That was probably because of my age.
We allow people to be creative. We set a direction, we set the vision, we set the strategy, but within that framework, we allow our people to be as creative as they want to be.
Business needs to push the agenda rather than waiting for it to happen.
The problem is you can't wear your old shoes too often because people say, 'You're still wearing that shoe?'
If we look at pricing holistically, we'll create a more solid business.
I'm trying to go beyond the traditional cliches of an African safari.
When I joined in 1990, as they say in the sport of sailing, Puma was in the doldrums. It was a difficult time, and Puma had gone to sleep.
We decided that sports, lifestyle and fashion were three elements that could be mixed together to a very unique formula. That's what we did: make Puma a very sports-fashion brand when, at the times, everybody talked about sports and sports performance and functionality. We said, 'Well, it's about more.'
Looking at Mount Kenya in the morning is a holistic experience. I go back at least once a year.
It's shocking to think about how little the travel industry cares about sustainability - and it's the basis of their business!
Puma was all about function and not at all about design. The founder of the company always believed functionality and performance were the only ingredients that could make Puma successful and design never mattered.
When I became CEO, Puma was bankrupt on paper.
When I started at Puma, you had a restaurant that was a Puma restaurant, an Adidas restaurant, a bakery. The town was literally divided. If you were working for the wrong company, you wouldn't be served any food; you couldn't buy anything. So it was kind of an odd experience.
I believe in metaphysics. I don't believe in God because I think that is a human simplification of the things we can't explain. But I believe in a greater universe.
I'm building Segera to promote a different way of doing tourism.
Obviously, South Africa is our most important market, but we are also gradually increasing our presence throughout East and West as well as North Africa. It is a continent with a lot of potential which we plan to tap into.
Everything is interconnected. The moment you take philosophy, psychology, religion and business and look at the underlying commonalities, that's when you start looking at business in a different way.
The old way of doing 'good business' was based on the principle, 'the ends justifies the means.' In the future, good business will invoke 'the means justifying the ends.' The E P&L can already serve as an important tool to help this shift in commerce from generating profits with collateral damages to profits with collateral benefits.
I haven't been hunting for years. It is just a tradition I grew up with.
In the long term, Greece is an important market for us.
I always wanted to be a medical doctor, and I never thought of business.
We have to find alternative ways of producing our raw materials without asking nature to do it for us.
The company was ready to close its doors; there was real financial distress. But on the other side, there was high brand awareness, but that was negative because Puma was perceived as low-priced. It had lost its cachet. It was a well-known brand without a presence.
Let's recreate the equivalent of the Met Ball in Europe and, rather than for the museum, give the money to environmental causes.
We believe that African football is among the best in the world and very much characterized the Puma brand mentality, which is to win.
Some of the greatest stars in the history of football have been under contract with Puma.
When you are small, and you have to try and prove yourself, it is tough. When others are catching up and copy you, that's tough. We constantly need to change ourselves to stay ahead of the game.
I'm a virtual worker. I'm not tied to an office.
The B Team can catalyse initiatives.
We should eat less meat - all of us - and we should use less leather. I mean, that's reality.
We all know that cattle and beef are among the biggest contributors to carbon emissions.
It may sound crazy, but maybe there's an economic way of producing a leather-like product in the laboratory.
Being able to dedicate 100 per cent of my time to impacting more businesses without being operational, it just gives me a bigger platform.
When it came to the discussion about would Harley do an electric bike, I said, 'Absolutely - this is a no-brainer.' Let's define the sound of the future.
I just don't like to talk about the past.
I call upon governments to start supporting companies to use more sustainable materials in their products instead of continuing with antiquated incentives, such as import duties on synthetic materials that are in principle much higher compared with those placed on leather goods regardless of the environmental footprint.
Governments have a unique opportunity to incentivise corporations so that they can accelerate their evolution to a more sustainable economy through more sustainable practices and products.
