Lou Panaccione

Co-Founder and Co-CEO OOFOS

Last Reviewed: September 29, 2026

Executive Summary

Lou Panaccione is co-founder and co-chief executive of OOFOS, the Braintree, Massachusetts footwear company that defined a category around recovery rather than performance: shoes and sandals meant for the hours after exercise. He founded it in 2011 with three partners, built it around the proprietary OOfoam impact-absorbing material, and ran it as sole CEO for fourteen years. In October 2025 OOFOS moved to a co-CEO structure, pairing him with footwear veteran Angel Martinez, with Panaccione keeping product development, operations, supply chain, finance and culture.

Career Highlights

• Co-founded OOFOS in 2011 with Paul Brown, Juan Diaz and Steve Liggett.
• Introduced OOfoam, the proprietary impact-absorbing foam that underpins the brand’s sandals, clogs, slippers and shoes.
• Served as the company’s sole chief executive from 2011 until October 2025.
• Named Co-CEO in October 2025 alongside Angel Martinez, formerly chief executive of Deckers Brands, Keen and Rockport.
• Led the brand as it moved from direct-to-consumer and specialty running retail into its own US stores, which began opening in 2025.

Professional Journey

Panaccione came to OOFOS from the athletic footwear industry. A 2018 interview profile describes him as a lifelong athlete and former high school and collegiate distance runner who brought “decades of experience at Nike and Reebok during the running shoe boom of the ’70s and ’80s”; it does not give titles or dates for that work.

In 2011 he co-founded OOFOS with Paul Brown, Juan Diaz and Steve Liggett. The founding observation was a gap in the market: athletic shoes existed for the workout itself, but nothing was designed for recovery afterwards. The company started with recovery sandals and widened the range over the following years into clogs, slippers and shoes, all built on OOfoam. It sold first direct to consumers and on Amazon, then through specialty running shops and larger retailers, and by 2023 was available in 32 countries. In 2025 it opened its first retail stores in the United States.

The company also tied itself early to breast cancer research. After a colleague’s diagnosis, OOFOS created a Project Pink line with a donation from each pair sold going to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute research, later extending the commitment to a share of sales on its own website.

On 22 October 2025 OOFOS announced a co-CEO structure. Angel Martinez, a founding executive at Reebok who had since led Rockport, Keen and Deckers Brands and had joined the OOFOS board earlier that year, took brand, product creation, sales and marketing. Panaccione, who had been sole CEO since the founding, kept product development, operations, supply chain, finance and culture. “OOFOS started with a simple idea — to help people feel good,” he said at the time, “and I couldn’t be prouder of our team and how far we’ve come.”

Education

No education record was found in the sources reviewed.