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Pierre-André Senizergues — Etnies and Sole Technology Founder on being Homeless to a Multimillionaire
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Pierre André Sénizergues grew up in the suburbs of Paris and got hooked on skateboarding at 14. He studied engineering in the early 80's and got a job as an engineer for IBM. He would skate during his lunch breaks at work and knew that he had to follow his passion. In 85 he moved to California to purse his skateboarding dream. From being one of the best skate pro's in Europe winning 12 French titles and 5 European Championships he became homeless and would do skate demos on Venice boardwalk to survive.
All that changed when Steve Rocco team manager for Sims Skateboards at the time saw Pierre skate one day and asked him to join the team. Pierre became obsessed with creating a shoe for skateboarders that was durable as well as functional. He teamed up with Rautureau Apple a French fashion shoe manufacturer and starting designing skate shoes with skaters in mind. etnies was born. In 89 Pierre launched etnies in the U.S. and later gained full rights to the brand name worldwide.
etnies was growing massively in the mid 90's selling millions of shoes and sponsoring the best skateboarders in the world. With specific team riders in mind he launched additional brands including éS, Emerica, apparel brand Altamont and snowboard brand ThirtyTwo. The company went under the Sole Technology Umbrella. They moved headquarters to Lake Forest, California and now Sole Tech distribute to 70+ countries and are the leading privately-held action sports footwear and apparel company in the world.
Tune in to find out how Pierre went from being a pro skater to an entrepreneur, designing shoes, building an action sports community, constructing the biggest skatepark in the world at the time and loads more!
Enjoy and get rad!
You can follow what Pritchard is up to on Instagram at PierreAndreSenizergues and be sure to check out etnies.com and Sole Technology.
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