Genesco Inc.

In 1924, three former shoe salesmen in Nashville began manufacturing $5 dress shoes they called "Friendly Fives" - footwear that, as the ads in the Saturday Evening Post promised, "could take a shine." That small operation, the Jarman Shoe Company, is the direct ancestor of Genesco Inc. (NYSE: GCO), a business that today books roughly $2.3 billion in annual sales and runs more than 1,200 stores across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

The distance between those two facts is the whole story. Genesco has been a manufacturer, a sprawling conglomerate that was the first apparel company to reach $1 billion in sales, and - after it exited U.S. shoe production in 2002 - a specialty retailer. Along the way it was renamed twice (General Shoe Corporation in 1933, Genesco in 1959) and became one of the original stocks in the first S&P 500 Index. What survived every reinvention was a single idea: put the right shoe on the right foot, for a customer you understand precisely.

That precision is the modern company's defining trait. Rather than chase every shopper, Genesco splits its brands cleanly by who they serve. Teens and young adults go to Journeys, Schuh and Little Burgundy. Affluent professionals go to Johnston & Murphy. Department stores and other retailers buy licensed footwear from Genesco Brands Group. One company, several very different customers, and - by design - very little overlap between them.