The fashion world is an illustrious one, not just in the spotlight on the catwalks and backstage during fashion weeks. The biographies of the industry’s CEOs, such as that of Valentino’s supervisory board chairman Rachid Mohamed Rachid, are just as dazzling to read.
From engineering student to trade minister
Rachid was born in 1955 in the Egyptian city of Alexandria. The son of a merchant family felt his calling to be a businessman at an early age, but initially studied mechanical engineering in his hometown at his father’s request.
“It wasn’t fun being an engineer,” says Rachid in an interview with Enigma Magazine. But his father, a successful shipping entrepreneur, advised him that as an engineer he would have better opportunities to analyze investments and understand production. “Now I think he was right.”
After completing his studies, Rachid felt a strong desire to create things – products, brands, value. Since the beginning of his career, he has not been interested in pushing numbers back and forth, says Rachid in the interview published last year on the video platform YouTube. “It was about creating something that didn’t exist before.”
Before he started working in the food industry in 1978, Rachid gained work experience as an engineer at a Danish refrigerator manufacturer. Back in Alexandria, he joined the family frozen food business. Rachid still fondly remembers how he built his first factories – from the buildings to the machines to the moment the first products rolled off the assembly line.
This is how a long, eventful career got rolling. Rachid founded a joint venture with the consumer goods giant Unilever, and from 2000 Rachid was responsible for the business of an entire region as president for North Africa, the Middle East and Türkiye. With this managerial position, the man, who was previously his own boss in the family business, moved to the London headquarters of the British company. He didn’t stay there long.
Four years later, Rachid was appointed Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Trade and Industry under President Hosni Mubarak. His appointment as a man from the private sector was unusual and to this day he is credited with liberalizing the Egyptian economy.
Reinvention in the fashion world
However, his term ended with the Egyptian revolution in 2011, Rachid fled the country with his family and settled in Qatar. Egyptian prosecutors froze the assets of him and other ministers, filed corruption charges and issued a prison sentence that was dropped years later, according to media reports.
Despite the stormy times that came with his transition into politics towards the end, he looks back proudly on the reforms and free trade agreements that he initiated as trade minister. Rachid advises young people to accept opportunities for career changes. “When there is an element of change, you take everything from your previous experience and add something new. That can result in a unique combination of things.”
Rachid himself managed to reinvent himself again and shortly afterwards his name appeared in the spotlight of the fashion industry. As CEO of the investment fund Mayhoola, in which members of the Qatari royal family are said to have invested, he took over the Italian fashion house Valentino in 2012. This was followed by the acquisitions of the menswear label Pal Zileri, the fashion house Balmain and the Turkish luxury department store chain Beymen.
Fascination luxury
After temporarily losing access to his previous assets, Rachid had to start all over again. After years in politics, he consciously decided to make a comeback in business in the highly competitive and international world of luxury goods.
“It was a very rational decision, I come from the consumer goods sector and had a large network, including contacts in the Italian luxury goods industry,” says Rachid in an interview with Enigma. As trade minister, he had previously experienced the appeal of the creative industry and the appetite of the then awakening Chinese middle class for luxury goods.
Rachid explains his fascination with the luxury goods industry with the global appeal of the brands. Compared to the consumer goods sector, where products have been adapted to local tastes, the products of luxury brands worldwide do not differ. “Luxury had the power to speak a global language and I found that very attractive. I knew this would be very important in the future.”
A stage for creative people
Rachid’s bet on the power of luxury seems to have paid off. The sales of the fashion house Valentino have more than quadrupled to over 1.3 billion euros since the takeover from financial investor Permira. According to a report in the trade magazine Women’s Wear Daily, Balmain’s revenues have tripled to around 300 million euros since the takeover.
Despite his business successes, the businessman, who comes from the needs-oriented world of consumer goods, openly admits in interviews that he does not have a good nose for the creative-emotional part of the fashion world and leaves it to the teams responsible for it.
As an example, he likes to cite the rejuvenation of the Valentino brand, which he pushed forward with a focus on accessories. When the creative team showed him the photo shoot of the studded high heels with the tattooed men’s hands, he had major doubts. Ultimately, he relied on the team’s intuition and it became one of the most successful advertising campaigns.
It’s about creating the best environment for creative people, says Rachid, describing his role in the fashion houses, which focuses on the business area. “My job is to set the vision and direction, select the right people for a task, motivate them and ensure that they fulfill their responsibilities,” he says in an interview with Enigma.
Luxury doldrums
However, the recent lull in the luxury industry doesn’t seem to have spared houses like Valentino and Balmain. Sales and earnings have been falling since 2023. The fashion house responded under the direction of supervisory board chairman Rachid by filling top positions: Alessandro Michele replaced Pierpaolo Piccioli as creative director last year after 25 years, and Riccardo Bellini replaced long-standing CEO Jacopo Venturini in August. Balmain this week announced the departure of longtime creative director Olivier Rousteing after Matteo Sgarbossa took the helm as CEO last year.
Rachid has recently increasingly distanced himself from his former plans to build his own luxury conglomerate. The French luxury group Kering acquired a 30 percent stake in Valentino two years ago, with the option to buy additional shares. The transaction valued the fashion house, which was once purchased for $700 million, at $6 billion.
In return, Mayhoola is considering building a minority stake in Kering in the medium term and positioning itself as an investor, but has no plans to set up its own luxury group, Rachid said two years ago in an interview with the industry magazine Miss Tweed.
Alsara and Bidayat
Rachid is also active in the European fashion arena through his self-founded funds. With his Switzerland-based fund Alsara Investment Group, he took over the Italian outerwear brand Khrisjoy and the eyewear label Akoni.
With the Bidayat investment fund, he invests and promotes the creative industries in the Middle East and North Africa. The investments include the jewelry label Azza Fahmy and the accessories label Okhtein, both of which combine modern design with elements from thousands of years of Egyptian culture.
The well-connected businessman remains deeply connected to his homeland – he often speaks of Alexandria as the most beautiful city in the world. With his investments in brands from the Middle East and North Africa, he hopes to use his resources to help them internationalize.