The new CEO of the French luxury group Kering, Luca de Meo, will exchange ideas with the group’s most important managers. These are several hundred managers. They had previously received a memo that suggested several courses of action to revitalize the group. The AFP news agency learned this on Wednesday, confirming a report by the business medium “La Lettre”.
The meeting will therefore take place in the form of a video conference. A source familiar with the matter told AFP.
In the memo that Luca de Meo wrote in the summer and before he took office on September 15th, the Italian made his diagnosis for Kering. The group owns brands such as Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga. According to La Lettre, he suggests “more than a dozen courses of action” to get the ailing company back on track.
According to de Meo, these suggestions include, in particular, “putting the customer at the center so that we are no longer solely dependent on the vision of the creative director.”
According to La Lettre, he believes the creative directors’ vision is “perfect for the 20 percent of the most creative and memorable products in a collection.” However, something different is needed for the remaining 80 percent, which consists of small leather goods, shoes and wearable ready-to-wear fashion. The “common sense” that prevails in the consumer goods industry must be incorporated here. This means a precise understanding of consumer expectations.
According to the specialist media, de Meo wants above all to “gain speed”. He aims to “shorten the average time from sketch to launch of a luxury product from one year to six months.”
“The current situation (…) strengthens our determination to act immediately,” said de Meo on the day of his appointment on September 9th. “This will require clear and strong decisions,” he stressed. “We need to continue deleveraging and, where necessary, rationalize, reorganize and reposition some of our brands.”
Less than a week later, on September 15, the new CEO gathered around 250 of the company’s managers, including the creative directors, on the day he took office to launch his term in office. The source familiar with the matter told AFP this, confirming information from La Lettre.
According to the same source, a very short video was also published on the internal network for all employees that day.
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