Valentino Hires Marketing Maestro Jacopo Venturini as New CEO

Though creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli is a certified hit with critics, Valentino has found it difficult to translate his well-received designs into dollar signs. This angle may have inspired the Valentino board’s decision to recruit former Gucci executive Jacopo Venturini as the luxury house’s new CEO.

Venturini is returning to Valentino for a third time, having served under house founder Valentino Garavani in the early 2000s and co-designers Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri from 2008 to 2015. These were two commercially successful eras for the somewhat troubled fashion label, which has seen sales slow in recent years.

From 2017 to 2019, figures rose by approximately €30 million EUR (approximately $32 million USD) each year — a positive sign, to be sure, but its €1.22 billion EUR (approximately $1.32 billion USD) take in 2019 was less than 1 percent growth from the last year, a smaller figure than its rivals. For comparison, Prada reported sales of €3.142 billion EUR [approximately $3.6 billion USD] in 2019, a 3 percent boost.

As Gucci’s Executive Vice President of Merchandising and Global Markets from 2015 until 2020, Venturini oversaw the rise of Alessandro Michele and played a key role in boosting Gucci’s global reputation. His strategies included doing away with sales and interpreting Michele’s head-turning runway presentations into diverse product selections, transforming Gucci from a €3.5 billion EUR ($3.8 billion USD) company in 2014 into a €9.6 billion EUR ($10.4 billion USD) brand by 2019.

Mayhoola for Investments, the Qatari group that owns Valentino and Balmain, hopes that Venturini can work his magic on the luxury label when he takes over the CEO position from Stefano Sassi on June 1. “Valentino means heritage and future to me,” he said in a statement. “It will be a pleasure working arm in arm with Pierpaolo.“