By Jess Jones
LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault has appointed his daughter Delphine Arnault as CEO of Christian Dior in a management shake-up.
She succeeds Pietro Beccari, 55, who has headed Dior for nearly five years but has also been promoted. He is set to take over as CEO of Louis Vuitton from Michael Burke, who will remain at LVMH and work with Bernard Arnault in some capacity not yet detailed.
Beccari will be a tough act to follow as he has trebled annual sales in just four years, boosting them to £5.9bn, according to estimates from Citi.
However, Delphine Arnault, 47, comes equipped with a wealth of experience. From 2013 she was Burke’s second in command at Louis Vuitton, and before that was at Dior for twelve years.
The senior Arnault praised his daughter in the statement as having a “career journey in fashion and leather goods defined by excellence”.
She has been a member of the management board at the French luxury goods company since 2003, as the first and youngest woman to do so.
Within hours of the announcement on this morning, LVMH shares jumped two per cent.
The move has been viewed as another step in the succession of the Arnault clan at LVMH. All five of the 73-year-old Arnault’s children hold senior positions within LVMH.
According to Thomas Chauvet, luxury analyst at Citi, the reshuffle is significant: “Succession planning in strategic roles has been instrumental to the success of LVMH’s key brands over the past 20 years.”
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