Equity Magazine March 2018

FINANCE
collections featuring just the right mix of new
and old. The company’s third-quarter sales in
2016 showed extraordinary growth, doubling its
net earnings from the year before. Puma didn’t
stop there. As 2016 drew to a close, Rihanna’s
PUMA Creeper silhouette dethroned Kanye
West’s Yeezys as Footwear News’ Best Shoe of
2016. By March 2017, boosted by the likes of
Rihanna, The Weeknd, Young Thug, Kylie
Jenner and Big Sean, Puma’s stock price rose
from €194 to €289.
Saidi, for his part, doesn’t hog all the credit.
“We had a new CEO who brought an amazing
energy, supported us with collaborations and
made things happen. I’m just a soldier.,” he says
modestly. Too modest. For those who may not
know, under the Puma umbrella, Select is
Puma’s department responsible for
collaborations and its platform for creating new
styles and aesthetics.
Ironically, the man behind Puma’s resurgence
with a concentration on sneaker collaborations
isn’t a big fan of sneakers himself. “I’m not crazy
about sneaker,” Saidi says. “I love many things,
but I’m a die-hard fan of nothing. This gives me
perspective. It helps me stay outside the bubble
and spot any faults. It helps me understand what
consumers want. To be able to do my job well,
I need to be out of the bubble.”
Saidi is a rare breed. He’s essentially an artist, but
one who understands the need for corporate
marketing. He speaks of his creativity like as if art is
just part-and-parcel of business. “What we do is
called attention trading,” Saidi explains. “When
deciding on a collaboration, we have to choose
between one of the two: either create something new
in a space where are all the attention already exists, or
strive to create something that will draw people’s
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EQUITY