MILAN — Marco Bizzarri, president and chief executive officer of Gucci, has taken a stake in Orienta Capital Partners, which specializes in investments in small- and medium-sized companies with a strong growth potential. Details about the stake were undisclosed, but Bizzarri becomes a partner and a member of the advisory board of the company.
While this step could fuel speculation about Bizzarri’s future, as rumors of possible new roles in the fashion industry for the executive emerge from time to time, last spring he told WWD he intended to stay on at Gucci, which he has been leading since December 2014, mapping out the next chapter of the brand, which celebrated its 100th anniversary this year.
Related Articles
In February, he firmly shut down rumors that he was headed to Ferrari as CEO. Bizzarri was in Los Angeles last week for Gucci’s most recent fashion show and the LACMA Art + Film Gala, sponsored by the Florence-based brand.
You May Also Like
“Orienta Capital Partners is in continuous evolution and the arrival of a top manager of the caliber of Marco in the advisory board of the company is exactly in the direction to strengthen the vision of the team of managers and entrepreneurs that founded it,” said partner Augusto Balestra. “Thanks to his intuition and his experience, the team will be able to benefit from an important contribution to continue to create value for the companies in its portfolio and further catch new investment opportunities in line with our identity.”
Orienta Capital Partners is headquartered in Milan and the Italian town of Forlì and since 2017, it has perfected 10 investments, including: Sidac, a flexible packaging company that has recently been sold to Schur Flexibles Group; Bassini 1963 and Glaxi Pane, specialized in frozen baked goods; Forlì airport FA; cosmetics firm Passione Unghie; aerospace LMA, and bottled water Acqua Pejo and Goccia di Carnia, among others.
Bizzarri started his career at Andersen Consulting, now Accenture. Leaving Andersen for Mandarina Duck in 1993 was a big leap — the first of many in Bizzarri’s career. He developed the brand’s international markets, setting up factories in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Hungary, and, after 10 years, he moved on to Marithé + François Girbaud for a brief stint.
His first executive role within Kering, at the time called Gucci Group, dates back to January 2005, when he joined as president and CEO of Stella McCartney. After building Stella McCartney into a profitable company, Bizzarri was appointed president and CEO of Bottega Veneta in January 2009. The relaunch of Bottega Veneta completed, Bizzarri asked Kering chairman and CEO François-Henri Pinault for a new position, becoming in April 2014 Kering’s CEO of Luxury, Couture and Leather Goods, but was soon appointed president and CEO of Gucci in December of the same year and went on to triple Gucci’s sales to 9.6 billion euros in 2019 from 3.9 billion euros in 2015. Since 2012 he is also a member of the executive committee of Kering.