Running with Purpose: How Brooks Outpaced Goliath Competitors to Lead the Pack

Discover how Brooks CEO Jim Weber re-founded a near-bankrupt company into a billion-dollar brand in the ultra-competitive global running market. Moving from the back of the pack to setting the pace, Brooks’ challenger brand, turnaround story is one for the ages.

It all started for Jim Weber with a seventh-grade paper and a dream; he wanted to run a company someday. But not just any company…he envisioned building a premium brand that stood for something people passionately valued while simultaneously driving a sustainably profitable business for investors.

Fast forward to 2001, when Jim Weber became the CEO of Brooks Running Company—the struggling brand’s fourth CEO in two years. The staff betting pool had him lasting four months. Jim devised a one-page strategy that he believed would not only save the company but over time result in Brooks besting the biggest athletic, fitness, and outdoor brands by earning the trust of customers. But to win first required a belief in its possibility and then the conviction, fortitude, and constancy of purpose to out-execute much larger brands. Brooks’ success was validated when Warren Buffett made it a standalone Berkshire Hathaway Inc. subsidiary in 2012.