October 8, 2025 • 7 mins
Matt Money Smith sits down with Henning Strauss is a visionary leader, entrepreneur, and CEO of STRAUSS, where he oversees the operations of Europe’s leading workwear. STRAUSS has evolved from a catalog-based retailer to a multi-channel powerhouse, boasting four megastores, a flagship store in Venice, California, and one of Germany’s top five e-commerce platforms.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is CEOs.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
You should know it's nottt Monnie Smith here. My guest
today is Henning Strauss, CEO of Strauss. It's a nearly
eighty year old outfitter of workware utilityware that's become a
lifestyle cult if you will brand over the last decade
here in the US. They introduced themselves into our orbit
over the last two years, a brick and mortar location
(00:24):
in Venice on Main Street and in the MLB playoffs
last year with their Strauss script logo on the side
of every helmet in the postseason. It is a one
and a half billion euro per year plus business and
Strauss is Ostrich in German, hence the Ostrich logo that
has become instantly recognizable, borderline iconic in certain areas. So welcome, Henny,
(00:47):
how are you?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Thank you so much for an honor to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Did you always know you were going to work for Strauss?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Well, you know, I'm now forty eight years old. I
always say I've been in the company for forty eight years.
It's kind of in a family business. You grow up
in the family business. That's what the family does, especially
in hours like as we've grown so much and when
as when I was young, we had just a few people.
Now we have you know, one thy seven hundreds, so
that's a bit different, different scale, But nevertheless it's still
(01:15):
very much family. There was an opportunity. It was my
father that had an amazing openness towards change and allowing
you know, his two boys to you know, continue and
but again change things around. So yeah, we've done recently,
you know, fairly well over the last twenty years or so.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So did your your father look to you and your
brother to institute that change? Hey, I can't do this.
I think this is something that you need to do.
Was he tapping into you and sort of what your
experiences were to make because it seems like it was
a pretty dramatic shift.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, I mean he was. He was very pleased when
I decided to study in the US, just because you know,
he's always had that openness and you know kind of
the feeling that you know, change always needs to happen
any generation, and if you're in a family business, my
firm belief is that every generation taking over, like a
family's tradition kind of needs to you know, needs their
(02:14):
own found founding period like the phase Why you question things,
and you know, you change the paths of where it's
heading without losing where you're coming from. And we've been
we've been in the business and always spend a good
twenty twenty five years, twenty years now he's retired, but
nevertheless working together. So it was always like the old
(02:36):
and the young, and it was you know, the openness.
But then yet again, I mean we kind of relied
them in for many you know, delicate decisions initial, especially
in the first few years. But he had that open
openness and I think that, you know, that's what made
us who we are, you know at this point in time.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
So when you come in, what is the business because
it's you know, it's work. Where when I think of
where I work construction for a number of years, I
think about my work pants and my boots and things
like that.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Is that?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
And then now I look at it and it's these
close are beautiful? Why put it sweatshirts and ten issues?
So is that the shift that you made? And how
hard was that?
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yeah? I mean initially, you know, it came to the point.
I mean I like after my Mike, you know, I graduated.
First thing I did in the summer help in the warehouse.
So I was looking for which pants am I going
to wear? I couldn't find any in our assortments. So
that's kind.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Of what comfortable do you mean for you to wear
every day kind of thing?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, no, I just kind of you know, when you're
twenty twenty something, twenty, I don't know, twenty three, four
or five, just out of college, right, you have certain expectations,
you want to go do things differently, and you know,
and we just didn't have the work pants that I
wanted to be wearing in our own warehouse. So so
then over time we had this, you know, this vision
of how can we you know, keep all the functionality
(03:57):
but also add new fabrics, make it nicer looking, and
also appeal to a new generation of working class people.
I guess what we now find is that, you know,
across generations, we don't only appeal to the young in particular,
like also the you know, the older older folks very
much enjoy our color range and our functionality. I think
(04:20):
it's but like you know, design's nice, but like you know,
much more important than just the design, and we very
much appeal to h you know, skilled qualified labor like
people that you know us so much in demand right now, so.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
You become the first logo, the first company to have
something on a Major League Baseball uniform. We see Strauss
on the batting helmets in the playoffs last year, and
immediately I would assume, like everybody that's in this room
right now, there's five of us, well you not included,
So four of us immediately googled Strauss what is? What is?
And so how do you because I would assume it's
(04:56):
a healty investment for the company to do that. Your
ROI on that, like, how do you determine this worked?
Is it by like did you feel it did? Did
the people in the company feel it? Knowing that the
financial investment you put into that here in the United States,
as you're kind of getting into this market, how do
you measure that success?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I mean, like with any sort of sponsorships, you're always
trying to you know, whichever sports entity you'd be talking to,
they always trying to provide numbers, and you know, to
bolster the offering and kind you know it's really worth
the investment, and you can you can try to measure
as much as possible and media reach and all these numbers,
but in the end, you know, when you do it
(05:35):
something like this, you kind of have I mean, there's
you have to believe in what you're doing, you know,
there's I mean it only like numbers in that case
can only explain so much. And obviously, yes, I mean
you can measure like how many millions you know saw
that saw that helmet. And initially a fan might be
(05:56):
you know, I mean it's a new asset that became
available and no one had ever done it before, and
I was quite quite confident and proud, you know, and
we had nothing to lose anyway. So but nevertheless, I mean,
initially there is a few fans that may not like
to see another commercial you know, commercial property you know,
on their you know, most loved helmet. But just intuitively
(06:24):
and from feedback that we're getting, like it really did
make a big splash, you know. I mean I've been
coming here for many, many years and I consider this,
you know, part of my home. But really like how
people have responded and like, you know, it really did
change people's perception. So that kind of tells me it
(06:44):
was the right choice and the right thing to do.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
That's been a fascinating, enjoyable conversation. Heading Strauss my guest
from Strauss S t R A U S S. Be
sure to check it out because when the playoffs roll
around again, you're going to see that logo and everyone's
gonna if they didn't listen to check it out. No doubt,
you're getting a lot of bang for your buck on
that one. Henny and I appreciate it, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Listen to CEOs you should Know on the iHeartRadio app
This is CEOs.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
You should know it's nottt Monnie Smith here. My guest
today is Henning Strauss, CEO of Strauss. It's a nearly
eighty year old outfitter of workware utilityware that's become a
lifestyle cult if you will brand over the last decade
here in the US. They introduced themselves into our orbit
over the last two years, a brick and mortar location
(00:24):
in Venice on Main Street and in the MLB playoffs
last year with their Strauss script logo on the side
of every helmet in the postseason. It is a one
and a half billion euro per year plus business and
Strauss is Ostrich in German, hence the Ostrich logo that
has become instantly recognizable, borderline iconic in certain areas. So welcome, Henny,
(00:47):
how are you?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Thank you so much for an honor to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Did you always know you were going to work for Strauss?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Well, you know, I'm now forty eight years old. I
always say I've been in the company for forty eight years.
It's kind of in a family business. You grow up
in the family business. That's what the family does, especially
in hours like as we've grown so much and when
as when I was young, we had just a few people.
Now we have you know, one thy seven hundreds, so
that's a bit different, different scale, But nevertheless it's still
(01:15):
very much family. There was an opportunity. It was my
father that had an amazing openness towards change and allowing
you know, his two boys to you know, continue and
but again change things around. So yeah, we've done recently,
you know, fairly well over the last twenty years or so.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So did your your father look to you and your
brother to institute that change? Hey, I can't do this.
I think this is something that you need to do.
Was he tapping into you and sort of what your
experiences were to make because it seems like it was
a pretty dramatic shift.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, I mean he was. He was very pleased when
I decided to study in the US, just because you know,
he's always had that openness and you know kind of
the feeling that you know, change always needs to happen
any generation, and if you're in a family business, my
firm belief is that every generation taking over, like a
family's tradition kind of needs to you know, needs their
(02:14):
own found founding period like the phase Why you question things,
and you know, you change the paths of where it's
heading without losing where you're coming from. And we've been
we've been in the business and always spend a good
twenty twenty five years, twenty years now he's retired, but
nevertheless working together. So it was always like the old
(02:36):
and the young, and it was you know, the openness.
But then yet again, I mean we kind of relied
them in for many you know, delicate decisions initial, especially
in the first few years. But he had that open
openness and I think that, you know, that's what made
us who we are, you know at this point in time.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
So when you come in, what is the business because
it's you know, it's work. Where when I think of
where I work construction for a number of years, I
think about my work pants and my boots and things
like that.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Is that?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
And then now I look at it and it's these
close are beautiful? Why put it sweatshirts and ten issues?
So is that the shift that you made? And how
hard was that?
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yeah? I mean initially, you know, it came to the point.
I mean I like after my Mike, you know, I graduated.
First thing I did in the summer help in the warehouse.
So I was looking for which pants am I going
to wear? I couldn't find any in our assortments. So
that's kind.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Of what comfortable do you mean for you to wear
every day kind of thing?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, no, I just kind of you know, when you're
twenty twenty something, twenty, I don't know, twenty three, four
or five, just out of college, right, you have certain expectations,
you want to go do things differently, and you know,
and we just didn't have the work pants that I
wanted to be wearing in our own warehouse. So so
then over time we had this, you know, this vision
of how can we you know, keep all the functionality
(03:57):
but also add new fabrics, make it nicer looking, and
also appeal to a new generation of working class people.
I guess what we now find is that, you know,
across generations, we don't only appeal to the young in particular,
like also the you know, the older older folks very
much enjoy our color range and our functionality. I think
(04:20):
it's but like you know, design's nice, but like you know,
much more important than just the design, and we very
much appeal to h you know, skilled qualified labor like
people that you know us so much in demand right now, so.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
You become the first logo, the first company to have
something on a Major League Baseball uniform. We see Strauss
on the batting helmets in the playoffs last year, and
immediately I would assume, like everybody that's in this room
right now, there's five of us, well you not included,
So four of us immediately googled Strauss what is? What is?
And so how do you because I would assume it's
(04:56):
a healty investment for the company to do that. Your
ROI on that, like, how do you determine this worked?
Is it by like did you feel it did? Did
the people in the company feel it? Knowing that the
financial investment you put into that here in the United States,
as you're kind of getting into this market, how do
you measure that success?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I mean, like with any sort of sponsorships, you're always
trying to you know, whichever sports entity you'd be talking to,
they always trying to provide numbers, and you know, to
bolster the offering and kind you know it's really worth
the investment, and you can you can try to measure
as much as possible and media reach and all these numbers,
but in the end, you know, when you do it
(05:35):
something like this, you kind of have I mean, there's
you have to believe in what you're doing, you know,
there's I mean it only like numbers in that case
can only explain so much. And obviously, yes, I mean
you can measure like how many millions you know saw
that saw that helmet. And initially a fan might be
(05:56):
you know, I mean it's a new asset that became
available and no one had ever done it before, and
I was quite quite confident and proud, you know, and
we had nothing to lose anyway. So but nevertheless, I mean,
initially there is a few fans that may not like
to see another commercial you know, commercial property you know,
on their you know, most loved helmet. But just intuitively
(06:24):
and from feedback that we're getting, like it really did
make a big splash, you know. I mean I've been
coming here for many, many years and I consider this,
you know, part of my home. But really like how
people have responded and like, you know, it really did
change people's perception. So that kind of tells me it
(06:44):
was the right choice and the right thing to do.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
That's been a fascinating, enjoyable conversation. Heading Strauss my guest
from Strauss S t R A U S S. Be
sure to check it out because when the playoffs roll
around again, you're going to see that logo and everyone's
gonna if they didn't listen to check it out. No doubt,
you're getting a lot of bang for your buck on
that one. Henny and I appreciate it, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Listen to CEOs you should Know on the iHeartRadio app
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