Harold Ruttenberg

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Harold Ruttenberg (born August 17, 1942 in Johannesburg, South Africa; died December 23, 2005 in Birmingham) was the founder and CEO of Just For Feet and Amalgamated Concepts.

Ruttenberg grew up in South Africa, working in a men's clothing company during college. After graduating, he began importing Levi's jeans for resale to stores. He eventually expanded to traveling the world to buy clothing for resale and opened his own chain of menswear stores in South Africa, making him one of the country's richest entrepreneurs.

In 1976 he brought his family to the United States and, in 1977, opened his first store in Century Plaza. The name of this store has been reported as both "Hang Ten Sports World" (Goodman) and "Two Feet Ahead"(Wikipedia). In a 1988 profile he said that he would be in the upcoming edition of the Guinness Book of World Records for having personally rung up 17,500 sales on a single cash register in a single day at the Century Plaza store.

After his rent increased in 1986, Ruttenberg came up with the concept of opening a large, freestanding store. The result was the first Just For Feet store, which opened on the perimeter of the Riverchase Galleria in 1988. He applied to be recognized with another Guinness world record as "owner of the world's largest shoe store."

Just For Feet went public in 1994 and went on to become the second-largest athletic footwear retailer in the world in the 1990s. In 1999, however, the company faced large scale criticism for an ad it ran during the Super Bowl. In August of that year, Ruttenberg stepped down as CEO. The company went on to be plagued by federal fraud investigations and shareholder lawsuits. Although other Just For Feet executives, including Ruttenberg's son, Don-Allen Ruttenberg, plead guilty to various charges, the senior Ruttenberg was never charged.

Ruttenberg went on to found Amalgamated Concepts, which owned and operated the Copper Grill and Crepes Egg-Setera restaurants.

Ruttenberg was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2004. Despite two surgeries and several rounds of radiation and chemotherapy treatments, he died at home on December 23, 2005, in the company of family. He is interred at Elmwood Cemetery.

Ruttenberg was a member of Temple Beth-El.

References

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