The French luxury giant Kering, parent company of Saint Laurent and Gucci, obtains a new CEO, Luca de Meo. And surprisingly, it is not a long-standing ready-to-wear post but a veteran from the automotive industry.
De Meo, 58, has run the French group Renault since 2020. He left the car manufacturer on July 15 and will become CEO of Kering on September 15.
François Henri Pinault, the heir to Kering, decided to give him the role of CEO while remaining as chairman of the board of directors. Pinault decided that he needed a recovery expert to reverse the fortune of Gucci and Saint Laurent. Gucci sales dropped by 21% in 2024 and the 2025 trend follows the same path. From Meo, who is known for his ability to relaunch car brands, will now have to apply his secret sauce to ready-to-wear companies.
During his career over 30 years in the automotive industry, he played management positions at Renault, Toyota, Fiat and Volkswagen. De Meo is recognized to save Fiat by relaunching the Fiat 500 in 2007. He is also responsible for the reversal of Renault.
From Meo, a multilingual framework – he talks about Italian, French, English, German and Spanish Pinault – with his ability to manage an international group during difficult times. Given as a foreigner by Wall Street analysts, he will be able to approach Kering’s fragility. The group has lost 2.5 billion euros (around 2.9 billion dollars) in income in the last 12 months, and its operating margin increased from 24.3% in 2023 to 14.9% by the end of 2024.
Chinese customers buy less and Trump prices could compromise American appetite for Kering – Gucci, St. Laurent, Balenciaga and Bottega Veneta. The success of De Meo’s roadmap includes the fence of ineffective stores and the reduction of a debt of 10.5 billion euros.
When De Meo left Renault, the CEO said he wanted “new adventures”. Its pay check may also have been a factor, because the French state is partly owner of Renault and is known to offer smaller remuneration packages compared to the private sector.