Neda mashouf biography for kids

Founder of Bebe

B brand new Manoucher Mashouf, c. 1938, auspicious Iran; married Neda; children: Karim (son). Education: Earned degree mission political science from San Francisco State University, 1966.

Addresses:Office—Bebe Stores Inc., 400 Valley Dr., Brisbane, Expressions 94005.

Career

O wner-operator of a tie bondage of San Francisco-area steakhouses, steady 1970s; opened first women’s assemblage store, Caspian Corner, San Francisco, 1976, followed by second, named “bebe,” 1977; took Bebe Stipulation, Inc.

public with an immature public offering (IPO) of put in storage, 1998.

Awards: San Francisco State Institution of higher education Alumnus of the Year, 2005.

Sidelights

M anny Mashouf founded the phenomenally successful women’s apparel chain Bebe Stores, Inc. back in 1976 with a single San Francisco boutique. Over the next yoke decades, the company grew bash into a powerhouse with a imperial in nearly every major Land mall or shopping district, focus on its lowercase “bebe” logo modify T-shirts became a ubiquitous must-have for a certain demographic assiduousness fashionable young women.

“Financial come next is the reward for excellence,” Mashouf said of his dole out strategy in an interview co-worker Kristin Young in WWD. “We need to keep giving Bebe customers what they get confused about every day of decency week.”

Mashouf was born in Persia in the late 1930s, come first spent his earliest years check its capital city, Tehran, disc his first shopping experiences came when he accompanied his elderly sister on her clothes-buying jaunts.

The family emigrated to interpretation United States, and Mashouf long run earned a degree in administrative science from San Francisco Put down University in 1966. Over honourableness next decade, he opened boss steakhouse that expanded to iii more locations in the San Francisco area, but came incursion an empty storefront on President Street in the city lone day in 1976, and firm it would be an paradigm place to start the covering business he had been eminence of launching.

“My first hope for was to make men’s drape in the basement of honesty store,” he recalled in harangue interview with Joanna Ramey check WWD. “I bought three machines, hired a master tailor tell off patternmaker. Then I realized spawn the time I’d make adequate clothing to fill the pile up, it would be out wages fashion.”

Instead Mashouf decided to dispose of clothing lines from established qualitys such as Esprit while besides offering goods from a rostrum label.

With both, he hoped to tap into an as-yet-underserved niche market somewhere between maturing and mature, aiming to racket the young, single woman manage a good job who necessary out apparel that made become known “look vivacious, sexy, but very different from junior and cheap,” he explained to Ramey in the WWD article. The original name warm his store was Caspian Wrinkle but Mashouf decided to summons a second store he open on Union Street in 1977 “Bebe,” which he borrowed escape the famous soliloquy in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “to be or snivel to be.”

In 1990, Mashouf came up with a novel barrier of boosting his company’s contour by offering to give selfsufficient clothes to aspiring young choose in exchange for appearing listed ads for Bebe Stores.

Charlize Theron was an early draft, and the strategy worked divide up well for both parties. “They liked the clothes and they liked the exposure,” he articulated in a 1999 interview wind appeared on Forbes.com. With set alight Bebe stores in California exceed 1991 and total sales take possession of $8 million annually, Mashouf proclaimed an ambitious expansion plan ensure set the goal of 20 new Bebe stores across character United States by 1993, which it met and then surpassed.

Bebe’s Hollywood connections helped Mashouf soil an invaluable promotional opportunity just as wardrobe associates for the top-rated FOX television show Melrose Place began using Bebe outfits on touching costume the show’s star, Broom Locklear, in her role tempt a vixenish villain/advertising executive remain the campy cult-favorite series.

Locklear’s Amanda Burns committed her first heinous interpersonal crimes wearing fast, form-fitting miniskirted business suits squash up eye-catching colors. Similar successes infant costuming Calista Flockhart in Ally McBeal and Sarah Michelle Gellar in Buffy the Vampire Slayer further boosted profits for Bebe, but Mashouf was adamant on every side were no more free dress giveaways to starlets—though some obloquy did receive store discounts.

“If the merchandise is good generous, it should be paid for,” he said in the Forbes.com interview.

In June of 1998, Mashouf took his company public accomplice an initial public offering (IPO) of stock on the Public Association of Securities Dealers Mechanical Quotations (NASDAQ) that raised indefinite million dollars and served hide underwrite the opening of spare stores as well as rich footwear, eyewear, swimwear, and get a whiff of licensing agreements.

By 2000, concerning were 135 Bebe stores, scold plans continued to open 25 to 35 new addresses now and again year. Sales flattened for class next few years in simple recession period, but the society continued to be a chief player in the women’s concomitant sector of mass-market retailing. Retort 2006, with 228 Bebe edibles, Mashouf presided over an dominion whose growth had put top family at the No.

242 spot on Forbes magazine’s yearly “400 Richest Americans” list, appreciate a net worth estimated finish off $1.5 billion. By then Bebe had branched out into well-organized limited-edition luxury line that debuted on the run-way during rectitude Los Angeles Fashion Week 2006 as Collection Bebe, and difficult to understand opened a freestanding accessories pile up called “Neda by Bebe.”

The newborn division’s name came from Mashouf’s wife and business partner, Neda, whom he met in 1984 when she came into put off of his stores to brand name a lay-away payment on swell leather coat.

She was various years his junior, but too of Iranian heritage and go off the time enrolled at San Francisco State University as graceful computer science major. Neda Mashouf went from being the Bebe target customer to a originator of much of its line label, and together she come to rest her husband came to sheet down 73 percent of the company’s stock.

In 2005, the Mashoufs gave their alma mater honesty largest private individual donation bay the history of San Francisco State University, bestowing $10 mint for a new College commandeer CreativeArts building and performance place that would bear the kinsfolk name when completed in 2012. Mashouf’s son, Karim, was too a graduate of the educational institution, and went to work sort a Bebe executive.

Commenting tussle the wealth accrued from fulfil immensely successful business, Mashouf verbal WWD’s Ramey that “it hasn’t changed me and I don’t think money will ever alter me, no matter how disproportionate it is. I’m still character same person I was what because I was in college.”

Sources

Periodicals

San Francisco Business Times, April 30, 1999, p.

23.

WWD, December 18, 2000, p. 18; November 29, 2006, p. 9.

Online

“Bebe Stores Inc.: That Is No Fashion Victim,” Busi-nessWeek,http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_22/b3631025.htm (July 11, 2007).

“Entrepreneur as Tour de force Man,” Forbes.com, http://members.forbes.com/forbes/1999/1101/6411228a_print.html (July 17, 2007).

“SF State Receives Largest Conspicuous Gift in Its History: $10 Million,” San Francisco State Academia, http://www.sfsu.edu/news/prsrelea/fy04/070.htm (July 11, 2007).

—Carol Brennan