‘Our best years are ahead’: Incoming StockX CEO Greg Schwartz outlines his vision

A leadership shake-up at StockX is repositioning the sneaker resale platform for the industry’s next era. On Friday, the company said CEO Scott Cutler has chosen to step down after more than five years in the role, effective 31 December. To replace him, the board of directors has selected Greg Schwartz, the company’s co-founder, president and COO. Schwartz co-founded StockX in 2015 with Dan Gilbert and Josh Luber (the latter served as CEO of the company until 2019). Cutler, an advisor to StockX prior to joining as CEO, will work closely with Schwartz to ensure a smooth transition, and will resume advising after that. StockX boomed during the pandemic, as sneaker resale surged and Gen Z began to see both sneakers and streetwear as a new asset class. But the platform met some headwinds since the sneaker market normalised off a pandemic peak in 2022, as the macroeconomic environment shifted and young people had less to invest. Plus, once Adidas shuttered heavily traded label Yeezy and market leaders Nike flooded the market with popular Jordans and Dunks, resale demand dwindled for many players. Since, StockX has undergone multiple restructurings to respond to the challenging macroeconomic environment, the latest was in January this year, when 40 staff were let go. But with growing new players like On and Hoka refreshing sneaker demand, new categories like apparel and electronics and new markets with growth potential, StockX’s incoming CEO is excited about its future. Here, Vogue Business sits down with Schwartz to understand what’s next for StockX and sneaker resale. Vogue Business: Greg, an exciting day. Of course you co-founded StockX in 2015, launching in 2016. Why did now feel like the right time to step up to the CEO plate and take over from Scott? First of all, it’s been an incredible partnership with Scott. The thesis for StockX was using the stock market as inspiration to go after our first category: sneakers. Scott had run the New York Stock Exchange and Ebay — the perfect mix. Over the last couple of years, Scott was very deliberate and intentional about saying: ‘Hey, there’s going to be a day in the near future where it makes sense to hand the CEO role back to you, back to a founder.’ Credit to him for being intentional and always having that be a goal of his. I think it was really just a sense of readiness. I’ve learnt so much from Scott. He’s helped us build such a strong foundation. So I’m ready to take over the role of CEO for this exciting next chapter. Vogue Business: When you think about next year, what are the strategic priorities? What’s the first port of call? First, we have an opportunity to continue scaling our brand. I think we’re really fortunate to have a unique brand that stands for current culture. We recently hired a new CMO, Nick Karrat. And so the partnership with Nick and our focus on continuing to build this brand, elevate the brand, is, let’s say one priority. I’ve always been incredibly passionate about our ability to innovate. There’s still so much room to make the platform even more engaging, all in the service of making it a great experience for our customers. That includes across categories and across markets that we continue to focus on. Global infrastructure is different for us on any given day. We connect buyers and sellers across more than 5,000 different trade lanes. And so for us to be able to continue investing in being a global marketplace, that’s really valuable and makes StockX unique. Brand marketing, product innovation, global infrastructure — these are three themes that I’m excited about. And I think that those will drive our next chapter of growth. Vogue Business: I’m glad you mentioned category diversification. I know this has been a priority for StockX in recent years. What categories are performing well and where do you see avenues for growth? The sneaker space was once dominated by Nike and Jordan, but there’s really been a consumer shift. We think that diversification is great for the customer, great for our brand, but you see more Hoka, more On. You see Crocs and Uggs starting to really take shape. So, just within what sometimes we think of as one category — sneakers — you’re seeing shifts and diversification. We also have a large and growing apparel business. It started with streetwear and we continue to invest in making it a great experience. We have large categories like collectibles and electronics. So there’s a mix of categories. And we’re not focused on necessarily opening up new categories, but making sure that the experience within each one of the ones we have is a phenomenal one for the customer. Vogue Business: How will StockX continue to adapt as the sneaker market evolves? We have to be nimble, and I think we have to be able to adapt. We’re fortunate. I feel like we’re still early in our journey, but we’re fortunate to have been around since 2016. Just in the past eight years or so, we’ve been through some unique cycles. Just in sneakers, the world all of a sudden was dominated by Jordans or [Adidas’s] Yeezy, Ultraboost and NMD. Then, we saw that shift, just between the major sneaker brands. Today, it’s a bit more of a value-conscious customer. So StockX as a brand, I think we’re often known for the products that sell out in five minutes and resell at a price premium. But customers don’t always realise there’s a tonne of products on StockX that are at retail price, or below retail. Customers are still looking for products that are inspirational to them. They still love products that are collaborations with an athlete or an artist or another unique brand. Some of those themes stay the same, but depending on what the macro environment is and depending on what brands are doing a better job balancing supply and demand or doing more collabs, you might see that shift from higher price premiums to more of a value-conscious buyer. Vogue Business: Sneaker market turbulence is one challenge. What are some business challenges that you’re hoping to overcome as CEO? Look, we talked a lot about a lot of the business priorities. But in today’s day and age, team members have a lot of options. So, a huge focus of mine is making sure that we have an incredible culture. And again, building on the foundation that Scott built, making sure that we have a work environment that’s set up so that our team members can do their best. We’re always fighting for the best talent and that will continue to be a priority for me. Then, we’re also navigating all the different macro shifts that happen at any given time. We need to be nimble. If Nike and the Jordan brand are showing weakness, we want to make sure we’re making the right adjustments. But a focus of ours will be making sure that we have a nimble platform and a great team. And that’s where we’re focusing a lot of the energy right now. Vogue Business: As a secondary market, you’re beholden to brands and any moves they make. As brands like Hoka and On surge, how is that energy passed on to StockX? It’s so unique. We are fortunate to be able to create a marketplace that showcases the best of the best from all the most relevant brands. That’s part of what’s so fun, seeing how those trends shift and making sure that our merchandising team and our marketing team always try to stay a step ahead. We hear about trends from our customers and make sure the product is available from our sellers and that it’s front and centre for the customer. On, Hoka, New Balance, Puma; it’s really cool to see these brands figuring out this playbook and leveraging scarcity, focusing on collabs and creating a lot of demand. That creates a more balanced ecosystem versus one that’s dominated by one or two brands at any given time. Vogue Business: Which global markets hold potential for StockX and where do you plan to focus your energy? We’re really excited about the opportunity in Europe. It was the first place that we launched outside of the US and so we’re continuing to invest in building our brand in the UK, France, Italy and Germany, specifically. We’ve also seen strong growth in Latin America and Mexico. And then Asia continues to be a really strong supply driver for us. So you see a lot of supply coming through our verification centres in Hong Kong, in Japan, in Korea. We’re continuing to make investments in each of those regions. It’s all about balancing supply and demand across the network. Vogue Business: Interesting! A few executives have told me Mexico and Latin America are a focus right now. It’s a fascinating trend. We started with a very small team as a bit of an experiment. And we found that there was an opportunity. There’s an audience there that just loves the products that we have on StockX. It’s an exciting market for us. Vogue Business: What are you most excited about for next year at StockX? I’m so excited about the vision for StockX and the fact that we’re early in this journey when we launched. It was rooted in this idea that there was a way to create a better consumer marketplace. Where we had market-based pricing, transparency of data. Now, our vision goes well beyond that. You could see a day and age where people can buy and sell potentially without even taking possession of an item, where we can create experiences that really tap into a customer’s passion for these categories. Some want to collect the item, some want to wear the item on their body or on their feet, and others think about these items as unique and valuable assets. So we’re really excited to continue differentiating, to build on that vision. We’ve been putting a lot of foundation in place, but I’m really excited to continue down this path of bringing that vision to life. And getting to work with an awesome global team every day. I feel like our best years are ahead of us. Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com. More on this topic: What’s next for The RealReal Why On is a sports megabrand in the making What Nike’s new CEO needs to do from here

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