Dansko’s New President Talks Areas of Opportunity & Why the Brand Isn’t Pulling Back on Its Retail Partnerships
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In early September, Kitty Bolinger stepped into a new role as president of Dansko, the West Grove, Pa.-based shoe brand whose stapled clogs have long been a favorite of nurses, teachers and other professionals.
But as she looks to grow the business, Bolinger told FN that the biggest opportunities can be found in Dansko’s lifestyle collections, accented by strong sales for its sandal selection.
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To help drive the brand’s future, Bolinger — who has been with the company over 10 years and was most recently EVP of sales and marketing — is joined by an all-female leadership team that includes CFO Jamey Mullin, VP of design Kelsey Jayne-Gomez, VP of marketing Christina Sewell and VP of sourcing Susan Li.
Here, Bolinger talks about capitalizing on the brand’s strengths and its search for an elusive customer.
How are you adjusting to this new role?
“It’s great. I still speak to [co-founder and former CEO] Mandy Cabot regularly. I still speak to [outgoing CEO] Jim Fox regularly. I have people who have done this before me on speed dial, so if I ever felt I was up against a wall and didn’t know what the decision should be, I have experts to call. That’s one of the nice things about the way that Dansko handles things. If we have a bad season or a bad year, we don’t we don’t fire everybody. That’s never been our approach. So it means there are a lot of people out there I can have a healthy consultation with because they still are invested in our future.”
How would you describe your leadership style?
“I am very team oriented. And I have been told that I use sports analogies too much. My son played college football and I was a student athlete, so I do love sports.”
What are your initial focuses as president?
“We’re working on some process changes and process improvements in terms of our go-to-market calendar, as well as our focus in marketing on content. Those are the two areas where you can have an immediate impact. With all the changes going on in our industry, it was time to revisit our product development processes anyway because they were more reflective of maybe the way things were five or six years ago. Operationally, we are still very excellent, so it wasn’t like there were glaring operations needs that needed to be addressed.”
How has business been performing in recent years?
“Someone said to me recently, ‘If you’re not Hoka, On or Birkenstock, don’t tell me that things are great.’ I mean, yeah, you got to be honest. But we are hitting the goals that we’ve set for ourselves in terms of the bounce-back from 2020. And we are seeing a very strong adoption of our product that is adjacent to our Professional clog. It’s clog silhouettes on different constructions. The Professional clog has been a little bit of a maintenance job over the last couple of years. We haven’t seen real growth there. But we had a terrific sandal season this spring. We sold out a lot of our sandals — a little too early, if you ask me. We left a little bit of food on the table.”
Sneakers have been a booming business for many brands. How have customers responded to your active collection?
“We are seeing adoption of that product. We have an outdoor shoe called the Paisley that is taking shelf space away from Merrell and Keen and some others. It’s a monster, it’s a category killer for many of our competitors in the comfort space. So that piece of active continues to be very important to us.”
What are the biggest challenges you’re facing?
“Getting the more skittish retailers to write future orders, so that we can determine where to make our investments. I think that’s prevailing throughout the industry. Also, we had a huge business with The Walking Company [before] they went away essentially in 2021. Now we’re trying to figure out where did that mall-based consumer go? We’ve seen growth with Dillard’s and Nordstrom, so is she staying in the mall and shopping elsewhere? Is it online or the local independent? How do we continue to have that relationship with her?”
What is your approach to retail — are you pulling back on any distribution channels?
“We are not pulling back. I know there have been trends in the industry to limit distribution as part of various strategies. The independent retailer is how we got to the dance, and we will stay at the dance with them. We know that we’re important to some of these folks’ livelihoods, so we’re going to continue to grow with them. In the independent channel, there’s consolidation that’s occurring, so there are a few stronger players in the market and we are partners with them, whether it’s Shoe Mill in the Pacific Northwest, Beck’s Shoes in the California area or Sole Provisions on the East Coast.”
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