Giving back- Maxine Clark- Founder of Build-A-Bear Workshop and Delmar DivINe

Maxine Clark is the Founder of Build-A-Bear Workshop®, a teddy-bear themed retail-entertainment experience.  In 1996, Maxine left her long and successful career in retail with the May Dept Stores and her role as then President of Payless ShoeSource, to start her own business focused on engaging children though the idea of “what”  was not yet specific. After an unsuccessful trip to a local toy store with her 10-year-old best friend Katie to buy a Beanie Baby, the idea for Build-A-Bear was born.  “We could make these,” declared Katie and 9 months later the first store opened in St. Louis, MO and a generation of makers began. Today there are over 400 Build-A-Bear Workshop stores worldwide, nearly 200 million stuffed animals have been sold world-wide.

Maxine stepped down from her CEB (Chief Executive Bear) position in 2013 to start her next act-- to help unleash the potential of women and minority entrepreneurs and to use her entrepreneurial skills create platforms and places that give access to more St. Louis families. Her latest venture is the Delmar DivINe™—the transformation of a neighborhood eyesore, the historic St. Luke’s Hospital, into a multi-use real estate development to open in late 2021.

 In 2017 Maxine was named to the Missouri Public Affairs Hall of Fame and in 2015 was named Women of the Year by the Greater Missouri Leadership Foundation.

Maxine is a graduate of the University of Georgia and holds an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from St. Louis University and an Honorary Doctor in Human Letters from the University of Missouri St. Louis and an Honorary Associates degree from St. Louis Community College. In 2006, she published her first book “The Bear Necessities of Business: Building a Company with Heart.”