Stefano Colombo, Sales and Marketing Director of Colmar

Stefano Colombo, that, in addition to loving the mountains, is a great lover of music (he plays the guitar very well), of food (he is embarking on an entrepreneurial adventure in the field of catering) and of politics, is the fourth generation leading one of the most solid and authoritative Italian companies in the ski wear sector: Colmar. Here’s how the family business faces new challenges.

Driving the sales and marketing of the family business is no small task, but if you are a millennial guy with clear ideas and sound principles, you can guide a solid and traditional reality through the needs of an infinitely more complex and articulated company than as it has been for the past 100 years. Stefano Colombo, born in 1985, is Sales and Marketing Director of Colmar, the company founded by his great-grandfather in 1923 and that, in the collective imagination, is one of the most authoritative Italian brands in terms of ski clothing. Colmar, acronym of the founder name Mario Colombo, initially produced work suits made with a hyper-resistant material, suitable for the working life: the rest arrived after the war, when Italians who began going to the mountains to ski, for lack of anything else, started using Colmar’s products.

“From a historic point of view, approaching the mountains has been a matter of opportunity and differentiation of our business, but from then on it became a great passion. Colmar has been among the first to approach that world and we will never abandon it, because it is part of our essence. I was born a few years later and have always lived in this world: so if you ask me what my relationship with the mountains and with the snow is, I can only answer that I don’t even know what my “non-relationship” is, the mountain for me is something innate. Last year I particularly suffered from not being able to ski: when, last weekend, I went back to the slopes, I thought I might be a bit bewildered by the situation, but it was as if a single day hadn’t passed. Probably because it’s something deeply rooted in myself: being there, on top of the track, just makes me feel good.”

When did you really realize what it was like to be part of the Colombo family?
I was 25 when I started working in the company. Before that, it has never been something we discussed much within the family, neither from the point of view of pressures, nor expectations, at least from the people close to me. I experienced those expectations more when I started working: I had a very particular entry process in which I entered a context, completely new to me, where it seemed to me that I did not have the right to ask questions, but that I had to immediately give some answers.

What have you brought to the company?
Surely a different generational mentality, which I try every day to make credible and applicable, also with respect to previous dynamics. I am younger than the average of the people in the company who, when I joined, still relied a lot on the strong personalities of my grandfather and his brother. It was a very patriarchal, hierarchical and family organization: a type of approach that deprived the whole environment of responsibility. What I have tried to bring instead is the empowerment of each role, and the possibility for everyone to carry out ideas or projects.

What teachings did your father and grandfather give you?
Example and reputation: the company in recent years has always acted in a transparent, clean and correct way, both in the market and in relations with people. For me this is a fundamental heritage of Colmar, that I try to follow in every gesture or decision.

In 2023 you will reach an important milestone: the centenary …
If everything goes as planned, and despite the difficulties of the last period of time, we will celebrate with some nice projects: we will not reach this milestone as a brand that has dragged on for 100 years, but as an entrepreneurial family whose history is intertwined with the one of its own country. From the Second World War to the health emergency due to Covid, we have gone through many moments: crises, reboots, strong geopolitical changes, but the common thread has always been 100% family governance.

As a brand that has its roots in the mountain environment, which is now in danger, what actions have you taken to protect it?
One of the most important focuses for us is sustainability: we are in a moment of transition that we will carry on for the next decades. This means that you cannot change overnight, because structural interventions are needed. What we are doing today in terms of sustainability, which is a rich and complex territory, is not reduced to the use of recycled fibers, it would be an understatement. We are working to have a supply chain certified as much as possible, therefore using both transparent materials and methods of operating, respecting the environment but also the people employed. Within Colmar Originals, our lifestyle line launched in 2009, we are investing heavily in The Recycled Essential line, which uses recycled and biodegradable fibers in all the components of the garments, from the logo to the zippers. The goal is to realize garments that can have a truly circular life cycle: because otherwise it is something of an end in itself, instead the steps to be taken are many and all consequential. The problem, however, is that companies follow the market, and the demand of the individual consumer is not yet so high, but if we are all more involved and empowered, both from the production and consumption side, then a virtuous circle will start. We cannot expect to become zero impact overnight, but we can take steps that allow us to reduce the impact we have on our existence.