Honorary doctorate for footwear retail group founder
20/01/2016
On learning the news, Mr Smith said that he was “especially honoured” by the offer because, although he did not attend university after school, he has lived and worked in Leicestershire all his life.
On leaving school, Michael Smith trained in accountancy and only entered the footwear business in 1980. He had family ties to the industry, however, because his grandfather had been a shoe manufacturer and owned shares in footwear retail group BensonShoe.
When the opportunity arose to acquire BensonShoe in 1980, Mr Smith and his brother decided to make the investment and later went on to acquire other local shoe companies such as the Oliver Group, Shoefayre and Stead and Simpson.
The Shoe Zone name was adopted in 2000, and Michael Smith served as the company’s chairman until 2014.
Shoe Zone currently owns over 500 stores in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, sells 20 million pairs of shoes annually and has 3,750 employees. The Shoe Zone Trust was established under Michael Smith’s chairmanship in 2005 and has made charitable donations of over £1 million.
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