Retail legend Leonard Riggio, who reinvented the business of bookselling, is ready for his next act.
The founder of Barnes & Noble, who opened his first bookstore in 1965 before buying the single B&N location six years later, is stepping down as chairman of the 640-unit chain in September, he said in an interview on Wednesday.
“I thought I’d be a school teacher and then I just opened one store after another,” he said.
Riggio, who served as chief executive of Barnes & Noble until 2002 and is its largest individual shareholder with a 17.5 percent stake, said he doesn’t plan on selling a single share of his beloved company.
While his chain is now being challenged by Amazon and other e-tailers, Riggio, 75, said he remains upbeat on the chain’s future.
“There’s always been gloom and doom about the future of the book business, but it keeps chugging along.”
The Bronx native predicted the declines the industry has been experiencing with the introduction of reading tablets and other digital devices have bottomed out.
“We are beginning to slowly bounce from the bottom,” he said, adding, “The book industry is going to be a viable business.”
Riggio should know about overcoming long odds. His father, a boxer, was one of only seven people to defeat Brooklyn-born Rocky Graziano, the onetime World Middleweight champion — in fact he did it twice.
He even had kind words to say about Amazon founder and Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, whose company has given B&N brass plenty of agita over the years. Riggio called Bezos one of the “genius entrepreneurs of this century.”
An avid art lover (he built contemporary art museum Dia: Beacon), Riggio said he’ll take a few art courses at The New School.
He will be succeeded at B&N by Paul Guenther, an ex-president of PaineWebber.