Del Toro has a new leader.
The footwear brand known for its Italian velvet slippers announced on Tuesday that it has named Chad Kramer as its new CEO.
The Chicago-based entrepreneur joins the company from Meta where he most recently served as a client partner at Instagram, where he focused on the fashion and hospitality space, Del Toro said. Previously, Kramer worked as an associate at J.P. Morgan Asset Management in New York City.
Kramer takes over the CEO role from Andrew Roberts, who purchased the company as part of a group of investors in late 2019. According to the brand, Roberts will still be involved with Del Toro going forward, but only at an investor capacity.
“Chad’s passion for footwear and his deep experience in marketing made him the perfect choice to lead the next chapter of Del Toro,” said Roberts in a statement. “I am confident that Chad will be a great steward of the brand that our customers have come to know and love.”
Kramer added that he is “honored” to take the role and hopes to use his “unique background” in brand building to discover how to speak with the brand’s audience “more effectively” as Del Toro aims to give customers “more of what they’re looking” for from the brand.
According to the company, Kramer hopes to further strengthen Del Toro’s marketing and present loafers as a key component of one’s wardrobe – reintroducing the loafer as a shoe that can be worn from day to night, for all occasions.
Kramer’s initial focus will be on three business streams for the brand: lifestyle, weddings and a post-activity shoe, developing an après sport shoe that can be worn after golfing, tennis and more, the company added. He will also continue to promote the Black Velvet Slipper – one of the brand’s most popular styles particularly for weddings – as a hero item for the brand.
As a first project, Kramer is spearheading the release of two new Del Toro silhouettes. The company said that these two new styles will be completely unstructured loafers with a more “supple, buttery feel” than the traditional dress shoe.
Del Toro, which was founded by Matthew Chevallard in 2005, has a solid following. Known for its edgy yet classic styles, the brand’s Miami flagship store captured the attention of Roberts in 2015, who was working in the area at the time.
Roberts continued to follow the brand, even when he moved from Miami back to Manhattan. In 2019, he overheard through a friend that Del Toro was up for sale. Roberts and a group of investors rallied together and bought Del Toro. By the spring of 2020, Roberts signed on as CEO and he was ready to work on relaunch.
Since Roberts took the helm, he helped the brand reemerge amid a post-pandemic return to dressier styles. One of the ways he did this was through the launch of a new marketplace on the Del Toro website. Called “We Love,” the site extension features complementary third-party brands that Roberts felt his customers would love from brands like Alberto Prints, Le Alfré, Palermo House, and Meriggi.
