This resemblance to America’s heartland would hardly be lost on Mario Moretti Polegato, whose office on the second floor of a squat, unadorned office building overlooks these fields and their whitewashed villas. Just 12 years ago, Polegato launched a small footwear company called Geox that has grown into the fourth-largest shoe manufacturer in the world, ranked by market capitalization behind only Nike, Adidas and Puma. Polegato, who carries the titles of chairman and founder, has already become the sixth-richest man in Italy, worth some $3 billion, according to Forbes.

Geox is the leading footwear company in Italy and one of the best-selling brands in Germany, Spain, France, Austria, Belgium, Holland and the other main European markets. But for all his accomplishments in Europe, Polegato seems obsessed with the idea of succeeding in the U.S. "Some American economists call our experience the American dream," he says in his heavily accented English. "This is because in Italy, in Europe, we have a different mentality, a different education than America about innovation."

Polegato is staking an enormous amount of capital on the risky proposition that the United States will become the linchpin in his global operation. His aggressive plans call for expanding his current chain of 13 company-owned stores, pushing hard into independently run multibrand retail outlets and surging into mass-market retailers such as Macy’s. By running his business in an admittedly American style, he hopes to make the U.S. his most lucrative international market within three years.

Old World Meets New
Polegato, 55, grew up ensconced in tradition, some might even say burdened by it. He was raised in Crocetta del Montello, in Italy’s Veneto region, some 50 miles northwest of Venice, a city that lives in and worships the past. The third-generation scion of a winemaking empire, Polegato spent many of his early years at the heart of his family’s vineyards, a 17th-century estate called Villa Sandi.

The main house, built in 1622, is a Palladian wonder, with a massive portico supported by four gigantic Ionian columns. Original limestone figures from the workshop of the late-baroque sculptor Orazio Marinali dot the crisply manicured and thoroughly symmetrical lawns and gardens. Hidden beneath the estate, wine cellars run more than 5,000 feet long, holding 2 million bottles of the family’s output.

Villa Sandi, and its parent company, La Gioiosa, will combine to produce more than 20 million bottles of wine this year.  The Veneto area is home to the world’s finest Prosecco, and Villa Sandi’s labels have won numerous awards.

Polegato’s family groomed Mario to take over this empire—he earned his first university degree in agriculture—and gorged him with the trappings of young wealth. "My family supported me in high school, the university, gave me a good reputation, a nice villa," he recalls. "They gave me money, a Ferrari, horses, motorbikes, a yacht, everything." But Polegato seemed fated to strike out on his own.

In the mid-1980s, he traveled to the U.S. for a wine conference, and planned a hike in the Rocky Mountains. Plagued by sweaty feet, Polegato cut holes in his sneakers to allow heat to escape. When he returned to Italy, he set to work on a method for integrating a breathable, waterproof membrane into the soles of various types of shoes.

He trademarked the Geox name in 1989 and then spent years perfecting his innovation and trying to sell it. "I offered this technology to the largest players in the world in the shoe business in Europe and in America. But nobody believed me," he says. "So I decided to produce shoes here." He launched the company with a bank loan and five collaborators and began making shoes in 1996.

Caffeine Dreams
By 2006, Geox employed 30,000, both directly and indirectly, and was producing 16 million pairs of shoes. This year the company is on pace to make 21 million pairs, all of which will have its patented breathable outsole. Polegato credits this remarkable growth—roughly 35 percent year over year—to not just millions of sweaty feet, but also a leadership style that diverges from his country’s way of life.

"I offered this technology to the largest players in the world in the shoe business . . . but nobody believed me."

"One day, people like me in Napoli created espresso and invented pizza. Now if you visit Naples, you drink the best espresso in the world and taste the very fine pizza," he says. "But at the same time, you discover Starbucks opening 10,000 espresso shops and Pizza Hut has 125,000 stores. American business, Italian idea."

While many Old World Italians—and Americans for that matter—fear globalization as the end of local business and culture, Polegato embraces it. "In Italy, we have [much] creativity, many fantasies, yes, even with the food," he says. "But every restaurant changes the food, every window is different from another window."

Polegato also lectures at universities throughout Europe, focusing on intellectual property law. He demands that the Old World’s business schools produce more entrepreneurs like him—individuals armed with new, innovative ideas and management techniques, and the expertise to disseminate these ideas and protect them from pirates. Ironically, in August Nike accused Geox of copying a design element from one of its children’s shoes in the company’s 2007 spring/summer line. As of press time, Polegato was confident that the matter could be resolved amicably.

Today Geox owns more than 50 international patents and, like most global shoe powers, outsources most of its production to lower-cost regions in Eastern Europe and Asia that are building solid reputations as footwear manufacturing centers. To cater to national consumer tastes, the company also creates new collections local to each market.

While he continues to invent new products and processes, his younger brother, Giancarlo, oversees the family’s wine operations. Mario is married to Ana Licia Balzan, who works part-time in Geox’s design division, and has one son, Enrico, 26, who will soon earn his law degree. Enrico also works part-time with the company. Polegato admits that it is too soon to foretell his son’s future in the family businesses—"I’m not very old," he says with a laugh.

After all, Polegato has much work to do in bringing his very American entrepreneurial spirit to the land where it was born. "I consider Geox like my son. I work very passionately: 10-, 20-hour days, I don’t know how much," he says. "But I do it because it’s my idea."

Matt Purdue is executive editor for Worth.