Made in the Shades
Scott Olivet '84 is certainly in his element as CEO of innovative, go-all-out sunglasses maker Oakley Inc., where he is focusing on the company's vision.

Story by Paul Sterman '84 / Photos by Carlos Puma

Scott Olivet ’84 knew all about the famed work culture at Oakley Inc.: the passion, the “mad science” vibe, the edgy and irreverent humor. Wooed by Jim Jannard, the legendary founder and longtime driving force behind the eyewear maker, Olivet had many discussions with Jannard over the period of a year before being named the company’s new CEO in October 2005.

So Olivet had plenty of time to immerse himself in the history and flavor of the Oakley ethos.

But it wasn’t until he came aboard—quite literally—that Olivet learned just how crazy that culture is. At a company holiday party, held on a boat in the crowded Newport Beach harbor, the new honcho endured an Oakley rite of passage—a test, really, to see if he had the right stuff.

“We have a culture that can quickly pick out the poseurs,” says Scott Bowers, a 20-year veteran of the eyewear company, which creates leading-edge products that range from battlefield optics for the U.S. military to specially tailored goggles for Olympic athletes to sleek sunglasses for everyday folks. “There are those who belong, and those who shouldn’t be here.”

Olivet proved his authenticity. That night, as he and colleagues were enjoying the holiday festivities, a band of men dressed in S.W.A.T. gear stormed the vessel. They blindfolded the new Oakley leader, bound his hands and ushered him—not so gently—into a speedboat and then into a waiting car.

Eventually the captive was taken to a helicopter, but by then Olivet had caught on: This was a meticulously planned prank, carried out by the soldiers of sunglasses, some of whom had been conspiring for weeks in Oakley’s futuristic fortress-headquarters in Orange County’s Foothill Ranch.

“And that’s pretty much the way everything around here is done,” says the CEO, smiling at the memory of his abduction.

Meaning that whether employees are testing the safety of lens equipment, conferring with world-class athletes, or plotting out pranks, they only know one way to go—all-out. Olivet gets it.

“Scott came in here, clearly understood what we were about, and admired our chaotic environment—the passion and youthful energy—and the brand we had,” says Bowers, Oakley’s vice president of worldwide marketing. “He was able to fit in and be very well-liked.”

It also doesn’t hurt that he’s helped Oakley reap boatloads of revenue. For 2006, Olivet’s first full year at the helm, Oakley reported record net sales of $761.9 million, a hefty 17.5 percent increase over the previous year. In 2007, Oakley reported quarterly sales increases ranging from 26 percent to 31 percent.

Then there was the blockbuster deal announced this past June—the merger of Oakley and Luxottica, an Italian fashion powerhouse. The Milan-based corporation is the world’s leading eyewear maker with its iconic Ray-Ban brand and the eyewear licenses for Dolce & Gabbana, Versace, Prada and Burberry. To boot, Luxottica owns Sunglass Hut and Lenscrafters, making it the world’s leading eyewear retailer as well.

The corporate pact called for Luxottica to acquire Oakley for $2.1 billion, transforming the company from a public to a private one.

Olivet is just now coming up for air. Taking the Oakley-Luxottica marriage from talks to consummation was a year-long process, one steeped in myriad financial intricacies. It all added up to a brutal work schedule for the 45-year-old Laguna Beach resident.

“If you asked me what I did in that period, it’s all like a complete blur,” he quips. Not that he’s complaining about the hours. After all, as Olivet notes, being the Oakley boss means getting to do lots of fun sports stuff: hanging out with motocross champ turned stock car driver Ricky Carmichael at the Daytona 500, or with motorcycle-racing champ Casey Stoner at the Red Bull Grand Prix in Monterey.

Must be heady stuff for a guy whose own athletic exploits ended at Pomona, where he was a half-miler on the track team. “I could see I wasn’t going to become a world-class track star, so I thought it was time to move on to other things,” says Olivet, who eventually would earn an M.B.A. from Stanford.

The Oakley brand is known for what Jannard has described as “science meets sculpture”—meaning high-tech gear that works well while also looking good. The company’s innovative look fits with the sports culture: cycling, snowboarding, skating, surfing, motor sports.

Designing, manufacturing and distributing all of its products, Oakley also performs exhaustive testing of its lens technology. Its polycarbonate material withstands shotgun blasts. The company sells its products in more than 100 countries, has close to 3,500 employees, and now makes footwear, watches, backpacks, men’s and women’s clothing—even such splashy electronic gadgetry as Thump sunglasses equipped with MP3 players.

Olivet came to Oakley with plenty of experience working with global brand products. Since 2001, he had served as the vice president of Nike subsidiaries and new business development, leading the sportswear titan’s $1.7 billion multi-branding division. For three years before that he had been at the Gap, overseeing real estate and store design for all the company’s brands.

As much as he enjoyed working at Nike, Olivet relished the challenge of leading Oakley. Jannard had served as CEO the previous five years, but what he really longed to do was get back to designing, experimenting and testing—the “mad science.” Oakley, meanwhile, had become complex and unruly after significantly diversifying its product offerings over the years.

What Olivet offered was product development insight, sports marketing savvy and extensive business experience—besides his time at Nike and the Gap, he’d spent more than a decade with management consulting firm Bain & Company in San Francisco.

“Prior to Scott coming aboard, there were a lot of passionate employees, but they were not all focused in the right direction,” says Bowers. “He came in, he clearly saw what our capabilities were, got everyone aligned to where we all agreed on the direction we wanted to go, and then he empowered us to do that.”

Bowers adds that Olivet was able do this without sacrificing the Oakley identity or culture—or dropping anyone from the senior management team in place when he took over, which is rare when a new leader takes over in the corporate world. In other words, Olivet saw the potential and enabled the company to get the most out of what it had. “He’s really brought out our strengths,” Bowers says. “He’s become a mentor to many of us.”

Tom Clarke, president of new business ventures for Nike, says Olivet exhibited similar skills when he was with the Oregon-based sportswear company. “It’s really hard to characterize him or put him in one box,” says Clarke, a Nike veteran of 30 years who says he essentially functioned as a senior adviser to Olivet. “He’s got a lot of financial acumen, he’s very creative…he’s extremely smart, of course, and he’s mentally flexible. I learned a lot from him.”

“Scott’s very good at working with people. He’s really perceptive of what people need in various situations,” Clarke adds. “Sometimes when you get someone who is very bright, they can be contemptuous of others who are not as bright. Scott doesn’t have any of that. He’s very genuine.”

That kind of attitude is probably what helps Olivet with his marketing research: For example, for a couple of weekends a month, he goes out and talks to customers in stores—and on the beach and in arcades, where he plays video games with that all-important teen demographic.

Olivet says it’s the variety of his work that he relishes most about being at Oakley. On any given day, he might be ensconced in discussions with investors, poring over spreadsheets, or offering input on Oakley’s 2010 sunglasses collection. An avid photographer as well as an art collector, Olivet says he gets to blend his “right brain-left brain” talents—his creative skills and business ability—more at Oakley than in any other job he’s had.

Olivet traces his passion for variety back to his experience at Pomona, where, besides being on the track team, the government major also worked as the opinions editor for The Student Life and hosted a show at the KSPC campus radio station.

You get a sense of the zany variety Oakley offers just by walking around the place. The cavernous headquarters is part military bunker and part futuristic sci-fi spectacle, with its circular lobby featuring ejection seats from fighter jets.

Olivet recalls showing an investor around the Oakley lobby one day—a scene he says symbolizes what working at Oakley is all about. There was a U.S. Army colonel working with the company’s military team on a product that would meet the special  needs of troops in Afghanistan; surfing great Layne Beachley was working out details of an Oakley-sponsored surfing event; and the members of the rock band INXS—big fans of Oakley bags—were on hand, gearing up for their next tour.

That’s why Olivet feels he’s found such professional fulfillment at this place: There’s challenge, stimulation and fun. In short, he sounds like a guy who’s got it made in the shades.

“It’s been everything I’ve thought it would be,” he says of his time so far at Oakley. “And more.”