Bob Mullaney had better find some more space on his shoe racks, now that the Boston-based CEO of RG Barry Brands is adding to his footwear portfolio.

When Tokyo-based Marubeni Corp. acquired RG Barry in 2024, the companies said the deal would help provide capital for future acquisitions.

That’s proving to be an accurate prediction, based on RG Barry’s recent acquisitions of the United Kingdom’s Jacobson Group and Brockton-based Green Market Services. Jacobson brings the Gola, Lotus, Ravel, and Frank Wright brands, while Green Market holds the global license for selling Clarks slippers and the US licenses for Timberland slippers. (RG Barry is already a big player in slippers, with Dearfoams, its flagship brand.)

Bob Mullaney, CEO of RG Barry.

Arguably the biggest brand of the bunch that RG Barry acquired is Gola, a sneaker line that Mullaney envisions expanding to a global scale. It’s the only Jacobson brand currently sold in the US, but further expansion here is expected.

RG Barry now has 280 people working for it, including 95 from Jacobson and seven from Green Market Services. It’s headquartered in Ohio, but Mullaney leads a corporate team out of an office in Boston’s Seaport.

Before the Jacobson deal, around 75 percent of RG Barry’s revenue came from slippers. Now that the company is more diversified, that percentage will be closer to 50 percent. That’s good news, broadening beyond the sometimes sleepy slipper business into the flashier world of sneakers.

“The intent was always to acquire and [to] go into the athletic footwear business, and to do it globally,” said Mullaney, who previously led Shoes.com and Rockport Co. “The athletic footwear space, there’s a nice history here [and] the market is significantly more exciting.”

Originally Published: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/02/17/business/rg-barry-bob-mullaney-shoe-brands/?p1=StaffPage, The Boston Globe