In 2011, he joined Crocs as Chief Brand Officer and accomplished what seemed impossible: making cheap foam shoes cool. He left in 2020 for Stanley, where he turned an oversized water bottle into a must-have item, then returned to Crocs last year to ramp up the brand’s partnerships and social media presence.

And he has unusual advice for executives looking to jolt a sleepy or small brand: Spend 50% of your time and almost all your marketing money on social media.

““I spend a lot of time on Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, YouTube … social media in general is just an amazing opportunity for any brand of any size,” he told me. “That’s where consumers are.

Terence Reilly, who handles branding for Crocs, advises other executives to spend at least half their time on social media. EMMY PARK

“A lot of purchase decisions begin on TikTok, and so we want to make sure that we are front and center.”

This year, Crocs has focused heavily on TikTok Live shopping, a modern-day QVC where people shop in real time, as well as the platform’s scrollable Shop. So has Hey Dude, another casual shoe brand the company acquired in 2022.

“Both brands, Crocs and Hey Dude, are the number one and number two footwear brands on TikTok Shop,” Reilly said.

Direct-to-consumer revenue has been up for Crocs, though overall revenue for both brands was down — 2.5% for Crocs and 21.6% for Hey Dude — year over year in the third quarter of 2025 as trends changed.

But Reilly is confident he can revitalize with limited-edition drops and by partnering with celebrities including Jelly Roll and Sydney Sweeney, who came on as a Hey Dude global spokesperson in August. (The actress’ controversial ads for American Eagle actually helped brand sales soar.)

He’s been here before.

Sydney Sweeney — who made waves with her American Eagle campaign this summer -— was named a global spokesperson for Hey Dude in August. Hey Dude

Sydney Sweeney in Hey Dudes. Instagram/ Sydney Sweeney

On his first day at the Colorado-based company, Reilly put up a poster in his office emblazoned with snarky criticism of Crocs: “Those holes are where your dignity leaks out.”

It was a reminder he would need to accomplish something that money typically can’t buy.

“We didn’t have an awareness problem… we needed to make Crocs cool,” Reilly explained as he gave me a tour of the brand’s revitalized mega-store on 34th street. “The brands didn’t want to be part of Crocs, or people didn’t want to be part of Crocs because they thought it was uncool.”

That meant years of reaching out to coveted celebrities and influencers, when Crocs should have been looking for something more organic.

After Crocs spotted Post Malone wearing a pair of the shoes, they partnered with him on a collaboration. Crocs

Crocs collaborated with high fashion brands including Balenciaga, which charged nearly $1,000 for a pair. Balenciaga

“We got a lot of nos for a long time,” Reilly said. That is, until 2016, when he spotted Post Malone wearing a pair of Crocs backstage.

“It was real,” the exec added. “We weren’t paying somebody to wear shoes—he was wearing them already, and his fans knew that.”

By 2017, they had launched a Crocs and Post Malone partnership.

Crocs now partners with dozens of brands and artists including Disney, Nerf, Nascar, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, SpongeBob, Star Wars, Pringles and MLB.

And while Reilly was grateful that luxury labels including Balenciaga and Christopher Kane jumped on the Crocs bandwagon a few years ago, featuring the shoes in their fashion shows, he knows that capturing high-fashion lightning in a bottle is probably not as likely as getting core customers excited again.

Terence Reilly, CMO of Crocs, almost exclusively wears Crocs. EMMY PARK

While Crocs stock faltered earlier this year (down 11% over six months), it’s rebounded more than 17% in the last month.

“I think there’s always an element of pop culture, [but] it always comes back to product,” Reilly said.

It also comes back to showing people you actually care. Like when, in 2023, Reilly got major attention after a woman posted on social media about her car catching fire — and her Stanley cup surviving it. He and the brand offered to buy her a new automobile.

“This young lady’s car caught on fire. I saw it on TikTok on a Wednesday, and Thursday I recorded a video without a script and posted it. All of a sudden I started getting phone calls saying, ‘Hey, you’re blowing up on TikTok.’ 100 million views later, I’m getting recognized in airports,” he said.

Reilly was also president of Stanley at the heights of the brand’s popularity. Getty Images

Asked about the role of luck in his success, Reilly pushed back.

“You make your own luck,” he said. “There’s always going to be an element of luck to anything, but you have to make it. You got to go out and swing, and we swing.”

He paused, gesturing at the Crocs displayed around the store. “I mean, there’s nothing like it. It is wonderfully unordinary. We sell shoes with holes in them.”

The post The man behind Stanley, Crocs’ virality has surprising advice appeared first on Our Story Insight.

The consortium would replace JLL, which checked out of the role last summer.

PIA, which answers to the Pakistani government, was recently reported by Saudi Arabia-based daily Arab News to be weighing proposals from seven potential groups to advise on the Roosevelt’s future and to facilitate any deal. The Morgan Stanley team would include CBRE, Manhattan’s most prolific commercial brokerage. 

The future of the precious Roosevelt Hotel site — which might be worth more than $1 billion —  is in limbo again. Robert Miller

Nothing about PIA’s plans could immediately be confirmed.

One source cautioned, “The Roosevelt owners have played with one scenario after another for at least 10 years and never did anything.”

A JLL team headed by the firm’s regional CEO Peter Riguardi resigned from the account last summer. A Pakistani government agency attributed JLL’s move to its wish to avoid any “perceived or actual conflict of interest,” as the firm represents several clients said to be interested in the site.

Since then, PIA has not announced a new financial adviser, a role that would include essentially brokering an outright sale of the site or a partial sale with a development partner. Arab News claimed that PIA would “fast-track” choosing a new adviser this month.

But one skeptical, prominent Manhattan investment-sales dealmaker said, “Who knows? It’s been a colossal waste of time, mostly because the property is tied to the government of Pakistan and their military leaders which turn over pretty consistently.”

While JLL’s departure was attributed to potential for “conflict of interest,” it isn’t uncommon for major Manhattan brokerages to work both sides of a deal.

“It often helps to make a sale or a lease easier,” an insider said. “They put up a so-called ‘Chinese wall’ between the two negotiating teams and it generally holds up.”

A JLL team headed by the firm’s regional CEO Peter Riguardi resigned from the account last summer. Erik Thomas/NY Post

Nor is it unheard of for brokers to rep developers hoping to build in the same areas. Moreover, JLL’s client list — which includes both leading developers and tenants — was no secret to either the brokerage or to PIA when the airline tapped JLL in February 2024.

Riguardi declined to comment. Emails to PIA seeking comment weren’t returned.

As previously reported in The Post, Pakistan’s government needs the dough from a Roosevelt sale to help support a $7 billion bailout arrangement with the International Monetary Fund.

The Roosevelt site between Madison and Vanderbilt avenues and between East 44th and East 45th streets is one of Manhattan’s most valuable pieces of land, situated in an East Midtown corridor where prestigious tenants have flocked to new office developments near Grand Central Terminal.

Migrants at the Roosevelt Hotel in 2023. James Messerschmidt for NY Post

The shuttered hotel lies amidst the new JP Morgan Chase headquarters tower at 270 Park Ave., a future Boston Properties (BXP) tower at 343 Madison Ave., and an unspecified SL Green development site on the former Brooks Brothers store at 346 Madison.

A new office tower at the Roosevelt site could have as much as 1.8 million square feet under Midtown zoning that allows large-size bonuses in exchange for significant pedestrian and transit improvements.

The 1,000-room Roosevelt Hotel has been vacant since the city in June terminated a contract with PIA to use it as a migrant shelter.

The 1,000-room Roosevelt Hotel has been vacant since the city in June terminated a contract with PIA to use it as a migrant shelter. Matthew McDermott

PIA has repeatedly changed its mind about what to do with the property since it took control in 2000. It was reported at different times that the airline would pursue an outright sale or seek a majority or minority development partner.

In the latest twist, Pakistan privatization official Muhammad Ali told Arab News earlier this month the building might not be demolished anytime soon, but would reopen as a hotel.

That suggestion drew laughs from Manhattan hotel experts who said reopening it  would take at least a year just to clean up the mess left behind by a year of migrant occupation.

“By that time, the markets for both offices and hotels might have changed,” one industry insider scoffed.

The post Exclusive | As NYC’s historic Roosevelt Hotel site sits in limbo, Morgan Stanley team poised to become new financial adviser: sources appeared first on Our Story Insight.