Thomas Bata dies at 93

Shoe tycoon and owner of the corporation of the same name, Thomas Bata, died yesterday at the age of 93 years. I heard an interesting story about Bata, and the early days of the international development of his global shoe business. He sent a salesman to India, who returned a failure, with terrible news; "Indians don't wear shoes". That salesman was fired and another hired in his place. Bata told the new salesman that "everyone in India should be considered a customer!". Today there are over 1200 Bata shoe stores in India, and it continues to be one of the company's largest sales regions.

Leslie Tenenbaum, the company's general counsel, said Bata died early yesterday in Sunnybrook Hospital only weeks before his 94th birthday.

Tenenbaum did not give Bata's cause of death. He said a company statement will be issued later. Funeral arrangements were not immediately known.

Bata is survived by his wife, a son and three daughters.

Bata's father, Tomas, founded the shoe empire in 1894 in Zlin, in what is now the Czech Republic. It would later swell into the giant Bata Shoe Organization.

Thomas Bata was born on Sept. 17, 1914. He fled Czechoslovakia for Canada in 1938 with the rise of Nazism in his homeland. He ran the shoe company from the 1940s into the 1980s.
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Thomas Bata

former Chairman - Bata Shoe

Thomas J. Bata (born September 17, 1914), also known as Tomas Bata Jr. and Tomáš Baťa Jr., ran the Bata Shoe Company from the 40s until the 80s.

Bata was born in the Czech city of Zlin, in what is now the Czech Republic, the son of Czech industrialist Tomáš Baťa.

Bata has also won many honorary degrees and is a Companion of the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian award. He is the Honorary Colonel of the The Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment of the Canadian Forces Reserve, and is frequently seen in the field visiting with its troops.

He currently resides in Toronto with his wife Sonja I. Bata, founder of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, where he continues to take an active role in the business, currently run by the Board of Directors of the company.
Sonja and Thomas Bata head the largest and most successful family-run business in the world, selling just one simple but indispensable article of clothing - the shoe. Their inspiring story is told in the Life & Times of Sonja and Thomas Bata.

From its beginnings over a hundred years ago, the
Bata Shoe Organization has sold more than 14 billion pairs of shoes - greater than the number of pairs of human feet that have walked the earth. It was Thomas Bata's father, a ninth generation cobbler, who founded the company in Czechoslovakia. His enterprising spirit, idealism and commitment to his workers formed the company's credo. Tomas Bata Sr. was a demanding father who groomed his son from an early age to run the company. When Thomas Jr. was 17, his father died in a plane crash. From then on, he resolved to carry on his father's legacy. Sonja Bata says: "His worry in life is that he might not live up to his father's goals, that he might fail his father."

By the 1930s, the Bata Shoe Organization was looking to explore the North American market. Thomas Bata wanted to make his mark. "I wanted to do something where I could say okay now this enterprise I built on my own. Canada was the one country that I selected for this experiment." Thomas Bata came to Canada and founded a successful shoe factory. He never looked back. And he did not disappoint his father's legacy.

After the war, Bata returned to Europe where he met and married Sonja who was impressed by this "capitalist with a social conscience." Sonja Bata's fashion sense and business acumen was to be a boon to the growing business. Together they would carry out the dream of Tomas Bata Sr. of putting shoes on the feet of every man, woman and child. They established companies in countries all over the world, employing local people and local materials. They built an international shoe empire. And Sonja Bata went on to create the largest shoe museum in North America to fulfill her twin passions, shoes and architecture.

Having built a network of more than 4,700 retail stores and 60 shoe-production facilities in over 30 countries, Sonja and Thomas Bata are about to turn over control of the business to their eldest son, Thomas George Bata. Read Full Post...