Pierre André Senizergues

As President, Owner and CEO of Sole Technology, Inc., Pierre André Senizergues runs one of the world’s best and most successful skateboarding footwear companies. Born in France, Pierre spent much of his youth skateboarding around Paris. After winning several European championship freestyle skateboarding titles, including the 1982 European Championships, Pierre moved to California in 1985 to pursue his dream of becoming a professional skateboarder in the U.S.

Sponsored by major skateboarding companies such as Sims Skateboards and Tracker Trucks, Pierre made a name for himself endorsing products and winning the World Freestyle Championship. In 1988, he went on to design his own pro model skateboarding shoe called the Senix (an abbreviation of his last name) for a new brand called etnies, originally started by a French shoe company called Rautureau Apple. After retiring from professional skateboarding the following year, Pierre went on to distribute etnies in the U.S.

Pierre was actively involved in the creation of innovative designs for etnies, including the Lo-Cut, Rap and Intercity. Around this time, etnies also began branching out into similar action sports like surfing, snowboarding, BMX and Moto-X by sponsoring riders in each of these categories. In 1995, Pierre also started a new athletically inspired and technologically superior brand of skate footwear called éS , as well as a brand of incredibly advanced and lightweight snowboarding boots called ThirtyTwo . Catering exclusively to the core skateboarder (those that eat, live and sleep skateboarding) Pierre created another skateboarding footwear company in 1996 called Emerica , a core skate brand embodying the individualistic, non-conformist attitude from which skateboarding was born.

Around this same time, Pierre took his four brands--etnies, éS, Emerica and ThirtyTwo--and organized them all under the Sole Technology umbrella. Hiring professional footwear designers and many other employees with veteran experience in the action sports world, he was able to focus more on overall vision, company structure, production and distribution. In 2001, Sole Technology took things even farther and established the first-ever biomechanics research organization dedicated to the study of skateboarding and action sports called the STI (Sole Technology Institute) , and, in 2003, opened an on-site biomechanics laboratory at Sole Technology’s Headquarters in Lake Forest, California.

Today, Pierre André Senizergues is one of the most widely admired and respected entrepreneurs in the action sports industry. Beyond the incredible achievements of Sole Technology, Pierre’s other personal achievements include winning the 1999 Orange County Entrepreneur of the Year Award, being honored at the 2003 California Immigrant Achievement Awards, as well as countless interviews in high profile magazines around the globe. Though his life has become quite demanding, Pierre is a skater at heart and still finds time to skate, snowboard and surf throughout his incredibly busy schedule.