Ermenegildo Zegna promotes Marco Barberini to Group Chief of Staff Officer and Chief Innovation & AI Officer.
Barberini announced his new role, which he took on at the beginning of the year, on Thursday on the career network Linkedin. He has been working for the Zegna brand, which, like Tom Ford Fashion and Thom Browne, is part of the Italian fashion group, for almost eight years. He most recently served as Global Media and Digital Business Director for Zegna. Before that, he also worked for the online retailer Yoox Net-a-Porter Group, most recently as Regional Director Europe for the Yoox platform.
In his new role, he will work with senior management to drive the implementation of the group’s three-year plan “by ensuring focus, speed and alignment on strategic priorities.”
As Chief of Staff Office, he ensures coordination and alignment between the Group CEO, the Brand CEOs, the Group Functions and the Brand Leadership Teams. He also strengthens governance, coordinates priorities and drives disciplined execution across the group.
The area of responsibility as Chief Innovation Officer focuses on leading the digital and data-related transformation of the group. He is tasked with defining a unified digital strategy, coordinating cross-functional initiatives and scaling shared platforms, capabilities and ways of working “to achieve tangible business impact”.
As Chief AI Officer, he defines and drives the group’s artificial intelligence (AI) vision and strategy, identifies and scales high-impact use cases, strengthens data governance and works with IT, HR and business leaders to “embed AI as a strategic driver of decision-making and performance”.
Barberini’s appointment comes after the Italian fashion group announced several changes to its management at the end of last year, including the appointment of Gianluca Tagliabue as its new CEO.