How a Racist Czech Shoemaker Built India’s Biggest Shoe Brand
Tomas Bata came to “shoe” the natives. They ended up building his empire — and saving his company.
Today, Bata shoes have blended so seamlessly into local economies that Vietnamese people assume they’re Vietnamese, Peruvians consider them Peruvian, Nigerians believe they’re Nigerian — and Indians, well, they’ll fight you about it. Indeed, India is the company’s largest market, with four factories, nearly 10,000 employees, over 1,860 stores, sales of over 46 million pairs a year, and revenues over $388 million in its last fiscal year. Its last global CEO, Sandeep Kataria, was even Indian.
Yet, when Tomas Bata, the founder of the Czech shoe company, set sail for India in 1925, he also carried a healthy dose of prejudice. He didn’t see Indians as his equals, but as people who couldn’t govern themselves. Shoes, he thought, were just one way to do that. Bata wouldn’t live to see the irony of his beliefs play out: India became his company’s lifeline when his own country took away almost everything he had.