The woman who defected from LVMH to Kering
Mimma Viglezio takes us inside Bernard Arnault's business empire and tells us why she left for Kering
This is part one of our interview with Viglezio, exclusively for paid subscribers to Dark Luxury. Next week Viglezio talks about Kering’s recent troubles, her thoughts on the incoming CEO Luca de Meo, and her time at the firm after the departure of Tom Ford and Domenico De Sole. Plus, what she believes luxury groups keep getting wrong about managing designers.
“He’s evil… but he’s one of the cleverest people I’ve ever met”. That’s how Mimma Viglezio describes billionaire LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault, not long into our conversation at The Conduit Club in Covent Garden, London.
The words could be read as theatrical, but she offers them calmly. It’s not a personal grudge. It’s professional experience. “He is evil in the sense of being opportunistic”, she said.
Viglezio is one of the most senior people ever to defect from LVMH to its arch-rival. She was director of worldwide communications at Louis Vuitton in 2003 before leaving just seven months later to take an even bigger role as executive vice president of communications at the Gucci Group, now known as Kering.
In an industry where loyalty and secrecy is valued above all else, it was an extraordinary move, equivalent to Coca-Cola’s comms person going off to sell Pepsi.
Two decades later, she’s speaking publicly about that decision and the culture behind it. The timing matters. In an era when Arnault is trying to shape his legacy as one of Europe’s greatest business titans amid a downturn, and luxury firms scramble for new creative leadership, the view from someone who got out matters more than ever.