In the beginning...
I grew up in and around the beach...started surfing at 12 when a friend pushed me into a wave on a longboard. I loved the rush: riding on a moving medium. I was hooked! We had a pretty committed surf gang in high school and we trekked up and down the coast as much as we could. Then my dad gave me a movie camera and I started filming. I just fell in love with the whole deal—the adventure, the travel, the bonfires on the beach, hanging out with buddies, trying to emulate the good surfers—the fun of it all.
I just knew surfing was what I wanted to do, but I went to USC because I wanted to get a business degree and because I really wanted to get a good job. I was hooked on surf, though, and I started traveling and surfing the most beautiful tropical waves. Then I met Jeff Hakman in Bali and we started talking about these trunks called "Quiksilver."
I was always in awe of the way great surfers ripped waves apart and how cool they were. So hanging out with Jeff was a way to keep surfing, live near the beach, sell some board shorts and stall graduate school and getting a real job.
There was no premeditated business plan. We just learned about manufacturing and fabrics and doing business as we went along. That was our first step. Our second was taking our shorts, like precious little gold bars, up and down the coast, trying to sell them, meeting the surf shop retailers and getting to know them. We gave them something new to sell. Back then surf shops sold boards and wax and maybe a tee shirt or two. We introduced them to apparel. Our third step was learning how marketing worked, making ads for the magazines, getting great pictures of our guys and using them to make our statement. We were the first surf company to use action shots instead of just product. We were making it up as we went along, and in some ways, we still are. We had no one to follow, no business model. No core company had grown beyond $10 million without selling out to the mass market. We did.
Passion...
I'm passionate about surfing and the board sports lifestyle, and so are most people in this company. If I hadn't been I would have gone into some other business. To build a brand you need to have a product you believe in, that you're passionate about. In our world you have to be passionate about marketing, building the right team. The riders have to be the best fit for the brand, and we have to create the right events, kick-ass hangtags, windows, website and retail stores. Most of all, we have to be passionate about protecting the core of our sports. That's what drives our support of our core board sports shops, no matter how big we get. That's why the core marketing, team and events are so important. And that's why we're passionate about our commitment to our Quiksilver Foundation, which focuses on supporting agencies that support kids, ocean, science, education and the environment. Educating our kids about caring for their planet,and in particular their incredible natural playgrounds in the mountains and the waves, is one of our major goals.
I'm passionate about having good, hard-working people in the company who are as passionate about the board sports lifestyle as I am. Not just the marketing guys but everywhere—I want finance guys, sourcing people, designers, salesmen and computer experts who go surfing at lunchtime, who take their families to the snow, who get what we are about and understand that this company will only be successful as long as we remember that and participate. I want people who understand water.
What we aspire to be...
There were no board sports business models when we started, but we wanted to build a great brand. How do you do that? We looked at role models, at other great lifestyle brands. Nike, Starbucks, Mercedes, Coca Cola—they share a lot in common.They all have an unwavering commitment to and passion for good, innovative product. Marketing is key, and a positive consumer experience and "word of mouth" from users is paramount. A lot of time is spent building the brand which gives it history and in turn earns it authenticity. In this way each of our role models has forged a global following. These brick-by-brick foundations have given these great brands "consumer permission" to get big and extend into new products.
We have tried to emulate these brand truths in everything we do at Quiksilver, growing but still staying true to our core values. Each of our brands has to operate in its own universe,have its own values and stay true to them. The company itself provides a shared infrastructure and support to all of them. We want to be proud of each one. And we want to keep growing, because if you don't you go backwards. Every person in our company wants to grow in his or her life, so our job is to facilitate that while keeping it cool.
What I've seen along the way...
On my watch I've seen a lot of companies come and go, and a few good people within them fall by the wayside. On the other hand, I've seen our company grow big but keep it real. I've seen the pride in people's faces when they do something within our company and/or our industry that they can be proud of, whether it's the development of a new product, the creation of a killer DVD, winning a sports title or hitting a really big number in sales. I love to see that pride of ownership at every level in our company, whether it's picking up paper clips to recycle them or coming up with a new and improved system for doing their jobs.
I hear from people who walk into our buildings around the world for the first time that they feel the energy and passion of the people who work for us. I've had so many great shared experiences with our staff—on business trips, at trade shows, on surf or snow trips, or hanging out talking about projects, products and the future. I get such a buzz that I can still relate to kids and how they feel.
What I'm most proud of...
We're a $2.5 billion company and we still operate like a nimble little family company. I'm proud of the fact that we've been able to bring so many of our team riders into the company and so many lifestyle people like myself who still feel that they belong in our family. I'm proud of the generations working within the company and how kids grow up and become so important to our company.
And I'm proud of the fact that we support the true legends of our sports and give them a vital role to play Wayne Lynch, Jeff Hakman, Mark Richards, Simon Anderson—the list is as long as the names on it are awesome. And that's what this company is really about.
I'm proud that we have kept the balance between salt and EBT. We need people with salt and snow in their veins at Quiksilver, just as much as we need the MBAs. Everyone said that wasn't the way to create a management team, but in fact we're leading the way. Now we're the business model that schools study, the one that wasn't around when we started. It's all about being inclusive, not exclusive. It's about growing the pond. It's about protecting the core. As SIMA Waterman of the Year for 2006, I'm proud that our industry looks to us to show the way.
The board riding culture and industry that Quiksilver helped create now influences all facets of life: fashion,sport, music, cinema, television, food, language, art, design and style.
I'm not just proud of Quiksilver, I'm proud of the whole industry we've helped create.
—Bob McKnight, Huntington Beach, April 2006