President / CEO, LPP S.A. (parent of Mohito), Mohito (brand of LPP S.A.)
Podcast WYWIAD Z PREZESEM | Piechocki, LPP: Nie chcę pokazywać twarzy, aby normalnie żyć
To nie same pieniądze nie pozwalają normalnie żyć, ale obecność wizerunku w mediach. To powoduje, że każdy bardzo łatwo Cię rozpoznaje, wszyscy Cię obserwują, pokazują palcem, czujesz się śledzony – w rozmowie z Cezarym Szymankiem mówi Marek Piechocki, współtwórca i współwłaściciel LPP SA, która stoi za takimi markami jak Reserved, Cropp czy Mohito. Sam o sobie mówi, że jest raczej milionerem, niż miliarderem, że radość w życiu daje mu rodzina, i że jest twardym, ale sprawiedliwym szefem. Daję sobie jeszcze około 10 lat, a potem owe budowanie dużej, polskiej, rodzinnej firmy przejmą moje dziec...
About Marek Piechocki
Marek Piechocki, president and CEO of LPP S.A., discussed the company's 30-year history and his management philosophy in a series of podcast interviews from 2019 to 2021. He stated that the company's success is partly due to delegating responsibility to low levels, describing himself as a "slave" to his best managers and saying that their happiness and satisfaction are his greatest concerns. Piechocki also said that the company's growth creates opportunities for employees to develop professionally, noting that assistants can become buyers, product managers, or directors over time. In a 2020 interview during the COVID-19 pandemic, Piechocki said that LPP would not pay a dividend that year in order to protect liquidity, and that the greatest challenge was managing people to preserve as many jobs as possible. He also commented on the company's social responsibility efforts, stating that Poland needs to catch up with European standards in environmental and social responsibility. In a 2019 interview, Piechocki explained that he does not show his face in public to maintain a normal life, saying that media visibility makes it difficult to move freely without being recognized. He also stated that he had transferred his ownership to a family foundation named "Semper festiwal" (Always Together) with the goal of keeping the company united as a large Polish family business.
Transcript (70 segments)
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Marek Piechocki23:18
This type of enterprise, and indeed we give quite a lot there. I also feel a certain kind of responsibility—I owe something to this country. Not personally, it's a burden, this conviction that first and foremost I should help those close to me. That's probably why I have more focus on the local Polish market than thinking about what's happening in other countries.
I think that as a country we are still too poor. We must first think about ourselves, about Poles. I come from a small town, Kościerzyna, 25,000 people. I know what it looks like 5 kilometers from Kościerzyna—some village, Skorzewo—what educational opportunities children there have compared to those in a big city.
I'm deeply convinced that we should first and foremost help Poland grow. We Poles still earn four times less than people in Western Europe. The level of education is still lower. And for that reason I'm deeply oriented toward Poland.
Sometimes when you help, the question is: do you give money or do you throw a fishing rod? From the very beginning I tried, because a lot of young people work for us, I always tried to do it in a way that engages young people too. There are various forms—whether we go and paint an entire hospital, children's clinics, or we organize entire rooms.
As a company we provide the money, and those young people from inside the company often contribute their passion, engagement, time. And this type of initiative—we try to do engaging projects. We have an arrangement department that furnishes rooms in those clinics. We buy equipment from IKEA that needs to be assembled, and later this shared work unites people.
When you go and work, you have the comfort that you don't get recognized. Unfortunately, I can tell you that this comfort is increasingly disappearing because we are one of the bigger employers on the coast. When you go to a café, there's always someone who recognizes you.
It's increasingly difficult, but on the other hand, when I go to Warsaw, I'm completely anonymous for many people. That allows me to live normally. On the train here, nobody pointed and said 'there's that guy with 1,000 shops.'
It's about 1,800 stores now—the numbers keep changing as new ones are added, but it's around 1,800. Back to the topic of helping—how do you react when people write letters to you saying they need foundation support for an operation?
In that regard, I prefer to approach it more systematically. These letters do come, but I prefer to do things systematically because we have a foundation. It will soon become a public benefit organization, completely transparent. I'd rather have professionals handle this than doing it spontaneously.
I believe we should help in various areas. When we talk about aid, we can't focus on just one area. Fundamentally, we direct our efforts toward children. We get tons of requests—sports clubs, various organizations come to us for support.
Despite that, we're more focused on people who are in some way excluded. Those are the two main areas for us. We don't support sports or arts unfortunately—at least not yet. Art only in the area of art schools, but we don't do those types of initiatives.
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Rafał27:32
To put a period on it—what kind of boss is Marek Piechocki?
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Marek Piechocki27:39
You know, once one of the colleagues said I'm 'hardware'—I think it's probably a bit true. I'm not easy, but most entrepreneurs aren't easy. I try terribly hard, beyond the norm, to maintain fairness.
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Rafał27:58
Sorry to interrupt, but you keep repeating fairness. How do you react if, for example, one of your employees pulls up to the company in a brand-new Maserati?
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Marek Piechocki28:11
His money, his business. He earned it honestly. His money, his business. Let everyone spend as they wish. These are strange situations, but my approach is—I remember once we were visiting how we built new stores, looking at our new arrangements.
Over breakfast, one of our construction coordinators was so happy he bought Zepter pots and probably spent a whole month's salary on them. I thought, 'Good Lord, I would never spend my whole salary on pots.' But then I thought—he works hard to spend on what he wants. If each of us works hard to fulfill our dreams or whims, there's no problem.
So if someone comes in that car or another, that's their business. Coming back to what kind of boss I am—as I told you, fairness for me is the paramount thing, so that everyone feels treated equally. It's impossible to guarantee 100%, but that fair treatment is the paramount thing for a good atmosphere in the company.
It's one of the sources of social conflict—a lack of sense of justice. I think the same translates to a company. Everyone can endure harder or easier conditions when they feel everyone else is in the same boat. That's probably why I don't have a separate office, I sit with everyone in the main hall—no office, no palm tree.
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Rafał30:05
Don't you happen to have someone at the company calling you a cheapskate?
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Marek Piechocki30:09
That's hard to say because when you think that right now we're building a distribution center for 860 million, we spent 196 million on building another distribution center, architecture projects we looked at cost us 60 million euros over two years. It's hard to call someone like that a cheapskate.
We spend 760 million on building stores where local craft businesses produce for us. It's hard to call such a person a cheapskate.
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Rafał30:52
You're a patriot then, especially a local one?
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Marek Piechocki30:56
You know, I think we should... I look at it this way. Patriotism for you means...
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Rafał31:02
So patriotism is important for you too?
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Marek Piechocki31:04
I'm probably an economic patriot. I somewhat distance myself from patriotism with sabers and rushing into battle. I'm more of a positivist creator, working from the ground up. My patriotism expresses itself in thinking about the local community—and 'local' can extend beyond Gdańsk, to Pomerania, to the whole country.
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Rafał31:34
And you only pay taxes in Poland?
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Marek Piechocki31:38
Yes, listen, recently I gave an interview—in the past year we paid about 900 million in all sorts of different taxes. They have nice names now—levies, I don't know if you understand. We are the most loyal to the Republic of Poland.
900 million in various taxes—does that make your heart swell? I say these are simply obligations. On the other hand, I think—even the marshal of the voivodeship invited me and said we are the biggest taxpayer there, among the top three, and we keep being there.
I thought I should check exactly how that works, because they don't pay attention to it. It's actually quite fine. We are from here, we are from this country. I owe something to this society, this country. Regardless of how hard it gets, I still perceive that we received our chances in this country.
I earned this money in this country. Of course, half today comes from abroad, but that first half still comes from this country. My children grew up here, I grew up here. I'm grateful to this country—it's not like everything fell from the sky or that I earned it all in the United States.
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Rafał33:23
Would you never go into politics?
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Marek Piechocki33:25
Absolutely not. I distance myself from politics. Listen, we have two rules at LPP that we've followed forever: we stay away from politics and away from religious denominations. Over different periods—10 years ago, 5 years ago, 3 years ago—various people made pilgrimages to us.
I see that the entire political world has learned that Piechocki is completely apolitical, and the only thing you can get from him is a nice shirt and store vouchers. I remember when President Wałęsa came to visit us and said he had a problem—his wife Danuta burned his shirt. No problem, Mr. President, in three hours you'll have a shirt.
But that's where our support for all politicians ends. Absolutely—listen, this is an area others are good at, let them stay good at it. We are good at what we do. We want to be completely apolitical and non-denominational.
Every month when young people come to us, I explain that our faith is faith in sales results—yesterday they were better than a year ago. We check our phones in the morning, we have an app, and we believe. As for politics, we're interested in foreign policy—we look at whether we sell better in Russia, Czech Republic, or Ukraine. That's all the politics we have.
Privately, behind closed doors, of course everyone has their own convictions and beliefs. But inside LPP, we want to focus that energy not on arguing whether we're center-right or center-left, but on how to beat our competitors and satisfy our customers.
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Rafał35:32
Speaking of being apolitical and faith-related—is your company tolerant?
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Marek Piechocki35:43
We must be tolerant. A lot of people work for us. I always try to treat others as I'd want to be treated myself. We've been cooperating with China for years. China had a bad image many years ago. I was furious when some of our employees treated Chinese people as inferior or less educated—they're often much more educated than us.
Today we have people from many countries. Our chief art director is Japanese. We have British, Korean, Brazilian employees. We have coordinators from countries where we have stores—Russians, Ukrainians. We must see them as people equally good as us, regardless of which country they come from, what beliefs they have, or what their sexual orientation is.
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Rafał36:44
The rainbow flag—if there was such a need or request at the company—would you do it?
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Marek Piechocki36:54
I'd prefer not to manifest either direction. Although on the other hand, in our industry—fashion—many men with different orientations work in it. You know well that the biggest fashion designers—Dolce & Gabbana, Dior, and others—are of different sexual orientation, and we tolerate and treat them equally.
Not tolerate—treat equally. Each person... the Chinese are not worse, they're equally good. We want them, we need them. But on the other hand, I'm against manifesting, and that's why I say I wouldn't want to hang a rainbow flag, a religious flag, or any other flag in front of the company.
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Rafał37:43
What advice would you give to someone starting their adventure at LPP, knowing what you know now?
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Marek Piechocki37:55
You shouldn't regret anything. You've made a lot of mistakes—the most on the Polish market, I give you my word. But I think the strength of our organization is that when mistakes are made, people aren't fired—they quickly recover, fix things, and move forward.
So I claim I've made a horrendous number of mistakes, but who doesn't make them? When you take enough risk to achieve something—like skiing, if you don't fall, you're not skiing well enough. You have to fall to overcome barriers and rise higher.
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Rafał38:44
Speaking of that—who is your external conscience? Who puts you in line? Who says 'Marek, stop for a moment, you did something wrong'?
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Marek Piechocki38:53
Myself. And in management—my management team. Sometimes we see we've made mistakes—Jacek, Sławek, or anyone else. But the strength is... we have our wives to put us in line sometimes, because they're completely independent.
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Rafał39:15
What does Marek Piechocki read?
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Marek Piechocki39:20
I've always read a lot. I used to read even more, now probably a bit less. I always had three categories: management—lots of books, I moved most of them to the company for young people to read; self-development, when it wasn't yet known in Poland; and industry books—fashion retailing, detailing, fashion.
I'm a devoted fan of Peter Drucker—the founder, you could say the precursor and creator of management. His 'Practice of Management,' written in 1946, and his subsequent books—I think everyone should read them. Many other management theories are based on his work.
As for business books at a turning point, I think 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People' was a breakthrough book for me. It's truly excellent—I recommend it to everyone. It was published many years ago and talks about how to behave as a decent person, essentially.
Then I'm somewhat interested in history—a different perspective, because you can learn a lot from history. Those are the three categories I move around in.
Who do I look up to? I like listening to Drucker—he's so smart it's unbelievable. I keep returning to him and his books. For example, I just found a book from the library: 365 readings, one message per day from Drucker.
But if you had to look at who I admire—there are many decent people. I think, for example, Bill Gates is a decent person. His company made a much better impression on me than Apple. Jobs may be so famous, but I don't respect a man who rejects his own children.
I can say Gates did something great for technology and discovery. But what fascinates me is truth-telling. I remember there was a passage where Jobs accused Gates of stealing his mouse. Gates said, 'We were both at the Xerox conference. Xerox invented the mouse—we both stole it.'
In those terms, I probably respect Gates more than the world respects Jobs. Fairness—those are the values that matter most to me. You can't do business at the expense of others. You shouldn't, at least.
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Rafał42:41
And how long will Marek Piechocki stay at LPP?
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Marek Piechocki42:44
We already have a succession plan. We meet as a family—we have a family council. The first time I mentioned this, my daughter burst into tears and thought I had cancer. That was 15 years ago, but now everyone understands we must think very seriously about what happens after I leave.
We're preparing—Marcin is being prepared in some way. We even have a plan B if Marcin doesn't achieve success. I estimate that within the next ten years I should definitely leave. I'm already 59—by 69 it definitely shouldn't be in my plans. It might happen by 75 too, but I wouldn't want my child carrying boxes at 60.
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Rafał43:47
What would you say to a young person starting their life adventure—because we've been talking about it as a life adventure—who dreams of reaching the point you're at now?
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Marek Piechocki44:16
I think the most important thing is, unfortunately, you need to be aware that it costs great effort. It requires tremendous engagement, great effort, lots of time, lots of sacrifice. But on the other hand, I'm convinced that if someone wants something, they can achieve it—they can climb to the top.
We have many such people at LPP who started as sales assistants or cart carriers and today head entire departments—like our commercial director in Poland who sells over 2 billion zlotys, and he came just to carry boxes. It requires very hard work, determination, and you need to know what you want.
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Rafał45:12
Have you thought about becoming a motivational speaker?
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Marek Piechocki45:18
Give me a break—I still have a lot to do. Although there was a moment—in 2002 we implemented fantastic Retek software. It was great software. They invited me from the States—business class, the works—to speak and show others that we can do extraordinary things. Gap couldn't manage it. Implementation took 3 years there, and we did it in 8 months.
I still feel I have many more things to do in business. I feel LPP is still a small company. I'd like my children to someday run our family businesses—not just LPP but also our hotel investments supervised by Piotr—to develop this family business even better than I did.
That would be my dream. It's not simple at all. That's why our foundation is called 'Semper Festiwal'—meaning 'always together.' I want them to stay together, so the capital isn't divided. They should build together a large Polish family company.
There are tons of such family companies in Germany. In Poland, I'm the first generation that has a chance to build something like this, because under communism companies could only be small. It would be great if we had something like that—a Polish family company as a showcase for the world.
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Rafał47:06
Marek Piechocki, co-founder and co-owner of LPP. Thank you very much.
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Marek Piechocki47:12
Thank you sincerely.
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Narrator47:16
This was Rzeczpospolita radio—an interview with the CEO of LPP...