Jochen Zeitz

“In the long term, Greece is an important market for us.”

“We always try to reinterpret sport in an innovative, fashionable way, and when we do fashion, we're always trying to bring our sports heritage into the fashion world.”

“In Africa, you can make three acres sustainable relatively easily, but 50,000 acres? It's not about picking up towels or sleeping in a tent.”

“When I started at Puma, you had a restaurant that was a Puma restaurant, an Adidas restaurant, a bakery. The town was literally divided. If you were working for the wrong company, you wouldn't be served any food; you couldn't buy anything. So it was kind of an odd experience.”

“Unless the local community signs up, wildlife won't survive. And without wildlife, no one will visit.”

“It's shocking to think about how little the travel industry cares about sustainability - and it's the basis of their business!”

“The old way of doing 'good business' was based on the principle, 'the ends justifies the means.' In the future, good business will invoke 'the means justifying the ends.' The E P&L can already serve as an important tool to help this shift in commerce from generating profits with collateral damages to profits with collateral benefits.”

“The problem is you can't wear your old shoes too often because people say, 'You're still wearing that shoe?'”

“We need to engage rather than educate people.”

“Every time a new CEO came, I got a promotion till I was made CEO myself.”

“I'm trying to go beyond the traditional cliches of an African safari.”

“I believe in 'business has a force for good.' You know, business has an impact on society. Of course, it creates jobs. It creates prosperity, but on the other hand, we also leave a negative footprint behind.”

“I can well imagine making acquisitions so long as these are complementary to Puma and move it forward.”

“I'm a curious person, and I always like to test new waters, and I've always jumped into the cold water and then started to think about how to swim.”

“I just don't like to talk about the past.”

“For a long time, companies ignored the fact that 80 percent of sporting goods are sold to the casual consumer.”

“If you look at the state of our planet, the next generations won't be around if we consider sustainability as a gimmick.”

“I wanted Puma to regain strength with the existing logo rather than try to get rid of the past.”

“Obviously, South Africa is our most important market, but we are also gradually increasing our presence throughout East and West as well as North Africa. It is a continent with a lot of potential which we plan to tap into.”

“Look at timber prices in the late '90s, at around $50. If you count the true damage of cutting down forests, the resultant flooding, insurance claims, and so on, then the timber price should have been $100.”