Zalando Co-CEO: Building Europe's Fashion Giant, AI in Retail and the European Dream

Hi everyone, I'm Nikola Tanyan, the CEO of the Norwegian So and Wealth fund, and today I'm here with Robert Gentz who is visiting us in Oslo, and Robert is the co-founder and co-CEO of Zalando, which is, of course, as you know all of you, Europe's leading online fashion platform. Robert started Zalando in 2008, right as the financial crisis hit. And most people thought that selling shoes online was a terrible idea. But now, 17 years later, Salando serves more than 50 million customers across 25 European markets. We own a lot of shares in this company and it's really exciting to have you here.

Yeah, thank you very much for for inviting me and having me. And of course, since you own the biggest kind of fashion thing, Uh in the world, what do you what do you wear today? I'm very, very dark today, so everything that I wear I actually got from Zolando today. So it's a bit like Steve Jobs, like your special.

Start like in Norway, you kind of have to dress a little bit warmer. Good, uh, good idea. Now, Rob, let's go back to the start. You founded uh Zolando in 2008, just as the financial crisis uh was kind of hitting the world. So tell me about the very start.

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