A jock and his socks

Professional basketball player. Ivy League graduate. Philanthropist. Sock lover.

Not exactly the bio one would expect to find for the typical former Penn student. But that’s exactly how the website for Evoke Socks, a company launched last December, describes its CEO.

Andreas Schreiber didn’t study business throughout his five years at Penn. Instead, the 6-foot-9 center, who averaged slightly under four points per game while playing for the Quakers, majored in environmental science. After his final season with the Red and Blue in 2011, he began a professional career in Europe that has seen him make stops with nine teams in four years.

Along the way, from high school in California to his new home in Surrey, England, one aspect of Schreiber’s personality has remained constant: He loves socks.

Now, despite his relative lack of business experience, the man who made 24 starts for the Quakers between 2006 and 2011 is the founder and proud owner of Evoke Socks, a company that sells cashmere socks while donating proceeds from every sale to nine charities of Schreiber’s choosing.

On the court, he matches his basketball shoes with a pair of neon socks — something, he says, he began doing before Nike made the trend popular. In formal settings, Schreiber uses his style to grab people’s attention.

“For me, it’s one of those things where you can dress nicely, wear a super nice suit, and the socks won’t show up until you sit down or walk,” Schreiber said. “It’s a subtle detail that people really notice, and it becomes a conversation starter, similar to a bow tie. It’s one of those interesting things where ... people have embraced it because it allows them to express their individuality in a more conservative manner when you wear a suit.”

A Swedish-American with passports for both countries, Schreiber has seen basketball take him all across Europe. His initial opportunity arose in Spain, with short stints in Sweden, France and England coming thereafter. Schreiber won a league title with Worcester two years ago, and — after a second foray in the Iberian Peninsula — now finds himself back in England preparing for the 2015 season.

But the idea for Evoke Socks stretches back to Schreiber’s time with the Quakers. It was while at Penn that he began developing the idea for his company, beginning with the premise that a percentage of sales should go to charity.

“The charity aspect was the basis of the idea,” he noted. “There are a lot of sock companies out there, so I knew I wanted to make something special and something powerful enough to make people remember it. There’s an emotional appeal to charities and I think it’s important.”

According to Schreiber, European professional teams have relatively limited schedules, usually practicing no more than two hours per day. In order to keep busy, the big man spent his free time beginning the process of developing his business, while simultaneously accruing capital.

“It took a little bit more than a year to plan it out,” Schreiber said. “Because I didn’t study business at Penn, I really had to figure out everything from pretty much the bottom up. From the programming to how to handle inventory to marketing and talking to bloggers, I had to learn how to do everything.”

Beyond crafting a business that uniquely engages with consumers and attempts to help others — between five and 10 percent of each sale goes to charity — Evoke’s product itself is also noteworthy due to its composition. All socks are 80 percent cashmere, and no two designs are the same.

“The socks aren’t thick,” Schreiber said. “Most people think cashmere and imagine sweaters and stuff being thick, but these socks are very thin and you can wear them every day.

“But what really makes it different is the charity aspect of it. It’s something people like to wear because it represents that charity or they have an emotional involvement with a certain cause.”

Recently, an engaged woman placed an order for multiple pairs of Evoke’s breast cancer awareness socks. According to Schreiber, the mother of the woman’s fiancee recently passed away from the disease, and the couple sought to honor her memory by having all groomsmen at their wedding sport the product.

“I told myself that these guys figured it out,” Schreiber said. “They understood what I wanted the socks to represent.”

While the initial batch of Evoke’s socks were inspired by events in Schreiber’s life — including the deaths of people close to him due to cancer and his passion for the environment — he recently partnered with former Penn teammate Dau Jok to create “The African Standard,” a sock whose proceeds are donated to Jok’s foundation aiming to benefit impoverished youth in South Sudan.

“As long as I can help his foundation, I think it’s a great partnership,” Schreiber said. “We’re in a position to make a big dent in the world, and we’re both really driven, so by putting the two of us in a room, we were able to make a lot of things happen.”

As one might expect, a player who spent five years with the Red and Blue has kept tabs on his former program from across the pond. Similar to members of this year’s squad, Schreiber underwent a coaching transition in 2009, when Jerome Allen took over after Glen Miller was fired midseason.

"[Former players] are proud of the program [and], even though they’re in a slump right now, we still believe things can happen,” he said. “There’s no reason Penn cannot be successful, especially with the facilities and everything in place. But they really have to think about what Penn stands for and to be humble about who they are.”

It’s clear that Schreiber also believes there’s no reason Evoke Socks cannot be successful in the long run. But it isn’t simply the money he makes that will determine its development.

“Success, honestly, is being able to provide a product that charities can support, one they are proud of supporting,” Schreiber said. “Usually, charities aren’t very fond of sponsoring products, but in this case, I feel like I have a product that they can really stand behind.”

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