Malamine Koné

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Malamine Koné (December 21, 1971 in Niena, Mali) is a Malian and French entrepreneur. He’s the founder of the sportswear brand Airness.

[edit] Biography

Born in Mali, he arrived in France at the age of ten and lived in the impoverished suburbs of northern Paris.

A professional boxer, he had to put an end to his career after a car accident in 1995. In 1999, he founded his own sportswear brand, Airness, using a panther as a logo. This logo derives from his boxing nickname, “the Panther”.

Football (soccer) players, such as his former classmate Steve Marlet, spread the brand wearing his products for free. That atracted the attention of French mass medias which soon depicted him as some sort of role model for youngsters from impoverished neighboorhoods. This gained him fame and French major football (soccer) teams such as AJ Auxerre or Lille O.S.C. chose him as a sponsor in 2004. Then he sponsored many European clubs such as Boavista, Fulham or Nantes.

Nevertheless, Airness is not limited to football. Indeed, it’s also associated to many french rugby and basketball teams and to major tennis players such as Nikolay Davydenko and Nadia Petrova.

In 2007, he was awarded the "young entrepreneur of the year" award by the Junior Chamber International.