Levi Strauss & Co. is the San Francisco apparel company that invented the blue jean in 1873 and has spent 170-plus years turning a piece of workwear into a global wardrobe staple. Today it owns the Levi's, Dockers, Beyond Yoga and Denizen brands, sells in more than 110 countries, and is reinventing itself under CEO Michelle Gass as a direct-to-consumer denim lifestyle brand while pushing water-saving manufacturing across its supply chain.
Michelle Gass is the president and CEO of Levi Strauss & Co., the first woman to lead the 172-year-old denim company. A chemical engineer by training, she built Starbucks' Frappuccino into a $2 billion brand, ran Kohl's for five years, and is now reshaping Levi's into a direct-to-consumer denim lifestyle retailer.