NEW YORK — Louis Vuitton named Anthony Ledru president and chief executive officer of the Americas, effective Jan. 1.
Ledru was most recently senior vice president, North America, at Tiffany & Co. Prior to that, he served as global vice president of sales for Harry Winston International and was at Cartier in Latin America and then in the U.S., where he held the role of vice president of retail at the house’s North American business.
At Vuitton, he is succeeding Valérie Chapoulaud-Floquet, who left the luxury leather-goods house in August to join French alcoholic-beverage company Rémy Cointreau Group as ceo.
In the interim period, Christopher Zanardi-Landi, Louis Vuitton’s executive vice president, commercial activities, oversaw the Americas region and worked closely with senior management executives.
Related Articles
“The U.S. is a very strategic market for us,” Zanardi-Landi told WWD. “It is, and always has been, one of our biggest markets in the world. We have a 130-store network, and it’s one that we concentrate on very strongly.”
You May Also Like
Zanardi-Landi added that Ledru is joining Vuitton after a strong 2014 and “tremendous success with the launch of Nicolas Ghesquière.” There is currently significant brand activity in the works, including the unveiling of the revamped Fifth Avenue maison at the end of the month, a new Peter Marino-designed store on Rodeo Drive that will bow in February and the opening of a unit in Miami’s Design District the following month.
“When we went out to look for a president in the U.S., we wanted someone who, first of all, had a very strong understanding of the industry in the U.S.,” Zanardi-Landi noted. “Anthony is coming to us with nearly 20 years of experience in the U.S. and in Latin America. But also very important to us, we were looking for a strong retailer, someone who is going to be very close to the stores. That is the thing we feel very strongly about in Anthony. He is someone who is close to the store teams and can inspire them.”
Last May, Ledru was named in a racial-discrimination lawsuit filed against Tiffany & Co. The suit was dismissed in August after Michael McClure, a group director with Tiffany, and the jewelry retailer reached an agreement.
“My understanding is that all of those issues were solved, and so we move on,” Zanardi-Landi noted when asked if the suit was at all a consideration in the hiring process. “We were looking at someone who has had a very strong career, and everybody we have spoken to in the market, from a retailing point of view, has been very, very positive, so that was not a bearing in our discussion.”