We met President Sara Galli during the latest theMicam last February: an important edition for the company, highlighted by the award given by the trade show for the “Best Couple of Footwear Manufacturers 2016”, which introduces the ninety birthday of the historic footwear factory based in Lomazzo (Como).

2016 marks an important anniversary for you. Any thoughts on this?

If we were to take a stock, surely there have been ups and downs, it’s a continuous cycle, but at the moment we are experiencing a relative stability, despite the current economic situation. I am fundamentally an optimist, plus luckily there is a lot of work and the collections are getting increasingly wider. We grandchildren of the founder are on the front line in order to follow every aspect and strategy, from the beginning of production to sales, we constantly supervise every activity. We reached the third generation, as the company was founded by my grandfather, Vittorio Galli. Then, with the second generation, we moved from children’s shoes (in which we were a leading company at European level), to women’s shoes manufacturing, mainly for Central Europe, Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, still the main markets where we successfully sell our product. In more recent times, other channels of trade are represented by Russia, North America, Australia and Japan.

How important is teamwork to you?

It’s fundamental. At the moment, there are five members of the family in the company, and about sixty employees. It’s vital to be “on top of things” every day, constantly. Our footwear factory has always paid a lot of attention to all manufacturing stages. The technical experts follow with scrupulous attention every manufacturing process, in order to keep the quality level of the product very high. Finally, in order to follow at best also the foreign countries, we have an agent network and, specifically for Germany, a sales director who works closely with the management.

What projects do you have for the future? Is there any initiative you would like to carry forward?

The experience of the flagship store is very interesting for us: we opened one mono-brand store in Dijon (France) and one in Munich (Germany). We would like to be present in the main European cities, we’ll see if the occasion arises… maybe in Milan too. These first two stores are doing very well. They help us, not only to increase sales, but also to introduce ourselves at best in those countries as regards both the collections and marketing and communication.