Our Commitment to Profits Through Principles

Last Thursday was a proud day for Levi Strauss & Co. After more than 30 years as a private company, we started trading on the New York Stock Exchange again, and not only did the NYSE let denim reign on the floor, but we also got a great response from the market.

There’s a long road ahead, of course, but this felt like an affirmation of what Harmit Singh, our CFO, and I saw during our investor roadshow – that there is a hearty investor appetite to support companies with strong brands, proven management, demonstrated business results and a solid moral compass.

Our business is stronger than it’s been in decades due to our execution, our people, our brands, and our values. That is what has driven – and will continue to drive – everything we are doing in our bid to be not just the world’s best apparel company, but one of the best performing and most sustainable companies in any industry.  

As we transitioned to public ownership, I was often asked if we’d be moving away from our Profits through Principles approach and shying away from industry-leading sustainability commitments or our advocacy on pressing social issues. The answer is, unequivocally, no. Absolutely not. We will stay true to our values. We will continue to choose the harder right over the easier wrong. We will manage our business not for the next quarter, but for the long term.

This is because there is no question in my mind that our value and our values are inextricably linked, and I believe it is false to say we or any company must choose between business performance or responsible social conduct. The most successful companies do both. That’s how they drive growth, strengthen their brand, and keep their people inspired and engaged.

We know we must meet financial expectations; we had those obligations as a private company, too. But we also know that how we do business is just as important as the business that we do. This ethos goes back to Levi Strauss himself, an immigrant entrepreneur who donated some of his first profits to a San Francisco orphanage and later endowed scholarships for women at Berkeley. It has also informed our unwavering support for civil rights, people living with HIV/AIDS, and the most vulnerable communities in our country today, including refugees, immigrants, and the LGBTQ community. 

Our history tells us that businesses don’t have to sacrifice core values in pursuit of short-term profits. That, in fact, companies can make decisions for the long-term while delivering exceptional returns to shareholders and stakeholders alike. Indeed, more companies are seeing that doing the right thing is good for business and helps them unlock value in new ways. Last year, to cite one example, our efforts to make finishing processes more sustainable led to Project F.L.X., an innovation that is fundamentally transforming our business for the better. 

I can’t precisely correlate leading with our values with our business results, but I certainly know it hasn’t hurt us. In fact, in 2018, a year when we vocally took on issues ranging from gun violence to voting to immigration policy, we recorded our highest revenue growth in more than two decades. 

We don’t engage in social and environmental advocacy or pursue more sustainable practices for marketing or sales purposes, but it’s great to know it complements and even furthers business success, rather than detracts from it. And on a personal note, it really feels good to come to work knowing we are doing more than just selling clothes – and to see the marketplace endorse both what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. That makes every day here feel just as special as last Thursday felt in New York.