ALDO Group

The ALDO Group is a privately owned Montreal company specialized in the design and production of shoes. Its three signature brands offer men’s and women’s shoes and accessories: ALDO, which features affordable products in the latest styles, CALL IT SPRING, which targets younger clients with entry-level prices, and GLOBO, designed for the entire family with its international brands like Adidas and Skechers. The company also includes a wholesale division called ALDO Products and Services (APS) that offers design and production services to other brands on a subcontract basis. ALDO Group shoes are designed in Montreal and produced outside the country.

Born in Morocco, founder Aldo Bensadoun was the son of a shoe merchant and the grandson of a cobbler.

He opened the first ALDO shoe store in 1972 on St. Catherine Street in downtown Montreal. In 1993, the company began expanding outside the country, opening a store in Boston, Massachusetts. Two years later, the first ALDO franchise was opened in Israel. The company’s e-commerce site was launched in 2005.

As of 2018, the ALDO Group operated nearly 900 branded stores in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Ireland. However, its franchising model means the brand is sold in over 3,000 stores in some one hundred countries around the world. Approximately 20,000 employees work in the Group’s stores.

The ALDO Group’s head office is in Montreal’s Saint-Laurent borough. Aldo Bensadoun’s son, David Bensadoun, who began working for the company in 1996, was made CEO in 2017.

Purse, Aldo, 2008. Gift of Sylvie Bourbonnière, M2015.7.8.1-2 © McCord Museum