Human resources departments worked overtime in 2024, transforming fashion’s C-suite — and creative studios, too.
According to a tally by WWD, more than 50 chief executive officers were appointed across fashion, beauty and retail — including at such marquee companies as Cartier, Gucci, Estée Lauder, Nike and Burberry.
New CEOs also were installed at Fendi, Givenchy, Moët Hennessy, Berluti, Hublot, Zenith, Tag Heuer, Van Cleef & Arpels, Chloé, Dunhill, Buccellati, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Vacheron Constantin, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Balmain, Levi’s, Macy’s, Courrèges, Fred, Aspesi, A.P.C., Fear of God, Ganni, Antonio Marras, Benetton Group, Revlon, Symrise, Proenza Schouler, Ulla Johnson, Bally, Selfridges, Everlane, Wolford, Boohoo, H&M, Santa Maria Novella, Michael Kors, Tod’s, K-Way, Baccarat, Altuzarra, Beyond Yoga, Elisabetta Franchi, Vhernier, Kate Spade, Dr. Martens and Mulberry.
Caroline Pill, global sector leader at executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles, said economic pressures mounted amid a global slowdown in the luxury sector and widespread consumer caution.
“I think there’s a tendency to blame the CEO, or to think that a new CEO will manage to improve performance immediately,” she said in an interview. “Also, the types of leaders that were needed pre- and post-pandemic are different for the next phase, a slowdown. It might require different skills.”
In Pill’s estimation, “for a long time, we were focusing on merchant and marketing leaders. I think we may go back to very solid, financially savvy leaders, who can do all the things you need to do in a cautious market.”
In her view, CEOs today require formidable skills across commercial, real estate, products and “operations in its broadest sense.”
“This new CEO needs to be able to manage a lean team and to improve the company’s performance quite rapidly,” she said.
She credits well-rounded executive leadership at Prada for its strong showing in 2024, describing Gianfranco D’Attis, CEO of the Prada brand since 2022, as financially savvy, global, luxury-driven and strong in retail, and Prada Group CEO Andrea Guerra as a seasoned executive “who knows how a business works. Had they put in a super merchant, I don’t think it would be doing as well as it’s doing today.”
The Domino Effect
Floriane de Saint Pierre, who runs an eponymous executive search and luxury consultancy in Paris, analyzed the CEO shuffle among European luxury’s biggest groups and three contributing factors surfaced, headlined by the domino effect.
De Saint Pierre explained that this effect can be triggered by an internal promotion, a retirement, or an exit to an external company, with the position often filled by another CEO or senior manager within the same group, whose position in turn is filled in a similar way.
“This means internal talent, development and succession plans are ready,” she said.
A good example is Compagnie Financière Richemont, which almost completely overhauled its leadership in 2024 via internal hires, with the exception of Montblanc, which brought in an executive from Stuart Weitzman. An incumbent was named group CEO, and internal talents became CEOs of Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Chloé, Dunhill, Buccellati, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Vacheron Constantin.
After the domino effect, executive departures due to “parting ways” or leaving for competitors can trigger new CEO appointments, but this happens infrequently in large groups, “hence development and retention plans work well” and “succession planning proved to be efficient,” de Saint Pierre said.
Among notable external CEO hires in 2024 was Louis Vuitton communications executive Stefano Cantino, who joined Gucci as deputy CEO and will move up on Jan. 1, 2025.
Scanning HR changes in 2024, Pill highlighted a plethora of “deputy” appointments, particularly at LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, which prefers to groom management talent from within and increasingly sets up management tandems.
For example, Jean-Jacques Guiony, the French luxury giant’s longtime chief financial officer, is to become president and CEO of its wines and spirits division, known as Moët Hennessy, with Alexandre Arnault joining him as deputy CEO.
Pill calls these “preparation roles.…I think it’s a smart way to ensure succession in a way that is safe for a business.”
LVMH also proved its ability to attract CEOs from competitors for non-CEO roles, with former Montblanc honcho Nicolas Baretzki named Christian Dior Couture’s deputy managing director in charge of commercial activities, and Miu Miu‘s CEO Benedetta Petruzzo joining Christian Dior Couture as managing director.
Regarding smaller brands that changed CEOs in 2024, de Saint Pierre noted that these shifts are often linked to new shareholders arriving, often private equity funds.
The year is poised to close with a number of CEO vacancies remaining, including at Victoria Beckham, Miu Miu, Rabanne, Jacquemus, Jil Sander, Diesel, Creed, Carven and Patou.
Creative Churn
Meanwhile, a thirst for newness in fashion fueled unprecedented creative upheaval at European fashion studios, with new talents installed at last week at Chanel, Bottega Veneta and Dries Van Noten, and earlier at Celine, Tom Ford, Calvin Klein, Lanvin, Missoni, Alberta Ferretti, Blumarine, Joseph, Fforme and Georg Jensen.
The glut of empty seats in fashion throughout 2024 generated fevered — and often spurious — speculation on social media that had serious journalists, and the targets of all the reckless gossip, pulling their hair out.
The wave of change is sure to further shorten the average length of designer tenures at Europe’s heritage houses.
According to a WWD tally, more than 20 creative directors at top European houses have been in their roles for two years or less.
Observers concur that the slowdown in luxury that spurred executive changes in 2024 is having a similar impact in design studios.
“A classic industry solution is new creative energy and ideas,” Bernstein luxury analyst Luca Solca said in a recent report for Bernstein, arguing that a thirst for newness in fashion has unleashed another round of musical chairs.
According to him, creative directors in the high fashion and luxury world “tend to repeat themselves over time and become predictable.” Hence CEOs at Dior and Gucci could push for new creative directors “to stem revenue declines,” he wrote.
Naming a new creative director is not sufficient for a broader “brand reignition” effort, Solca warned, stressing that requires “simultaneous consistent changes in merchandising and collection structure, media communication, social media content, visual merchandising, in-store environment, events, PR, ambassadors, key wholesale account ‘hijacking,’ etc.
“A critical mass of consistent changes with the new creative vision is indispensable to produce ignition and attract consumer attention back to the brand.”
De Saint Pierre argued that searches for new creative talents should not center on only names.
“They should start with governance. Each brand being unique, the governance of brand assets and creative resources should be uniquely designed,” she said.
In her view luxury firms mulling a creative change should first ask themselves key questions: “What are the expectations? How to reach these expectations? How to set up the governance of brand assets for success? What is the most suitable organization? And then who are the best talents? A shareholder, a board, a CEO have to go through such questions when designing a brand strategy.”
Marco Pecorari, assistant professor and program director of the master of arts in fashion studies at Parsons Paris, has noted that designer appointments have become part of the “spectacle” of fashion that attracts interest and attention.
According to him, the dynamics around creative directors changed in the 2000s when Europe’s fashion conglomerates were forming — LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Prada Group and Gucci Group, now known as Kering — and designers became “more entwined with the economic mechanisms” behind this business configuration. “As soon as the numbers start to stagnate a bit, there is an attempt to change.”
The year closed out without official succession plans announced at Fendi following Kim Jones’ exit; at Maison Margiela after John Galliano bowed out; at Jean Paul Gaultier following the departure of Florence Tétier, and at Helmut Lang following the exit of Peter Do.
