By Enyichukwu Enemanna
French billionaire and the world’s richest man, Bernard Arnault on Wednesday announced a rejig of the top management, promoting his daughter, Delphine Arnault to head his LVMH luxury empire’s Dior fashion house.
He also named a new CEO at flagship brand Louis Vuitton.
The reshuffle came after Arnault’s net worth increased last month as he became the richest person in the world, leaving behind Twitter and Tesla boss Elon Musk who fell to the second spot.
The 73-year-old tycoon said that the appointment of Delphine, a top executive at Louis Vuitton, as head of Christian Dior Couture is the “continuation of a career of excellence in fashion and leather goods”.
Under Delphine’s direction, Louis Vuitton was able to “fly from record to record” and her “sharp eye and incomparable experience will be decisive assets in the continued development of Christian Dior”, Arnault added.
Arnault’s LVMH is Europe’s most valuable company and has a portfolio of high-end brands including Fendi and Louis Vuitton and has a market value of about 388.29 billion euros.
The billionaire’s daughter will succeed Pietro Beccari, who has been made the chief executive of Louis Vuitton. Beccari will replace Michael Burke as the head of the world’s leading luxury brand in terms of sales.
“Nobody doubts that he will lead Louis Vuitton towards even greater desirability and success,” Arnault said, praising Beccari for his “exceptional work” as head of Dior over the past five years.
The outgoing CEO of Luis Vuitton, Burke, will take up a new position alongside Bernard Arnault.
The management changes will be effective from February 1.
Meanwhile, Arnault, who surpassed Musk on both the Forbes and Bloomberg lists of the world’s top billionaires late last year, has 5 children and all have top jobs at LVMH.
While Delphine has been executive vice president at Louis Vuitton since 2013, his eldest son, Antoine Arnault, was named CEO of holding company Christian Dior SE, which controls LVMH, in December.
Alexandre Arnault is an executive vice president at jewelry brand Tiffany, while his brother Frederic is CEO of watchmaker Tag Heuer. Another son Jean is director of watch development and marketing at Louis Vuitton.
The French tycoon has made $20.0 billion in the last year and has a net worth of $182 billion. The world’s richest man in richer than Elon Musk by $50 billion.
