BY GREG DUTTER
T W I S T S O F FAT E R u n n i n g f u l l g a l l o p o n g r o w t h , P r a s a d R e d d y, p r e s i d e n t a n d C E O o f Tw i s t e d X , r e v e a l s h o w t h e b r a n d i s m a k i n g e x t e n s i v e i n r o a d s i n t o t h e We s t e r n a n d c a s u a l l i f e s t y l e m a r k e t s .
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UST HOW PRASAD REDDY came to be president of Twisted X eight years ago—and has since led the company out of bankruptcy to seven straight years of 30 percent–plus annual growth—can only be described as a twist of footwear fate. No one saw this coming, especially not Reddy. The rise of Twisted X from fringe Western boot player to rapidly evolving casual lifestyle brand is a serendipitous turnaround tale full of twists and turns as well as several market firsts. It’s a success story that proves basic brand management tenets apply regardless of market segment and, at the same time, how a fresh approach can be exactly what’s needed to spark growth. Here’s how the story goes: Reddy, who possessed nearly four decades of senior level executive experience working at Wolverine Worldwide, Freeman Shoes and K•Swiss, received a call in the fall of 2008 from a colleague in Taiwan in desperate need of his assistance. The friend had invested heavily in an upstart Texas-based Western company, Twisted X Boots (as it was then known), that was heading into bankruptcy. He held fast to the belief that the company still had potential. “There’s something there,” he told Reddy. He asked Reddy to look into it and consider helping. While Reddy had zero experience in the Western market, he had become a footwear fixer in the casual and athletic markets, adept at looking under the hood of companies, determining what was wrong and getting them running smoothly again. Following three days of diagnostics on Twisted X, Reddy agreed with his friend: “I liked the product, the niche and the owner [Bob Frazier]. There was something special there.” Reddy spent the next five weeks going over the company’s inner workings with a fine-tooth comb. “I looked at the numbers closely and concluded that we could turn this around,” he says. Reddy, who most recently had been consulting for a smattering of casual footwear brands and overseeing the completion of a temple in his adopted hometown of Grand Rapids, MI, officially
12 footwearplusmagazine.com • january 2018