LVMH: Italian executive Andrea Guerra quits
Andrea Guerra is set to leave LVMH, which he had joined in early 2020, but will continue to collaborate with the group as “strategy and development consultant to the management,” as LVMH announced in a brief note. The Italian senior executive and former boss of Luxottica, who was notably in charge of the Hospitality Excellence division for the world’s number one luxury group, will be pursuing “new projects.”
At the end of 2020, exactly a year after joining the French giant to take charge of its hotel business, comprising the Cheval Blanc hotels and the Belmond and Orient Express hotels and trains, Guerra was assigned the additional remit of overseeing Italian luxury labels Fendi and Loro Piana. In May 2021, he was also tasked with overseeing the group’s eyewear manufacturer Thélios, joining its board of directors.
Guerra will step down from his roles at LVMH on May 31. The group said his successor will be appointed soon.
Guerra graduated from the University of Rome La Sapienza, and began his career in 1989 in the hospitality sector, as marketing director at Marriott International. In 1994, he joined home appliances producer Merloni Elettrodomestici, later renamed Indesit, where he held various positions in the commercial, production and central administration departments, before becoming CEO in 2000.
Four years later, he took charge of the Luxottica group, where he remained until 2014, growing the eyewear group’s revenue by just shy of €3 billion, to €7 billion.
After a one-year stint in politics, as adviser to then Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Guerra returned to the business world as executive chairman of Eataly, the Italian fine foods and cuisine group. A position he left in autumn 2019 to join LVMH, to whose executive committee he was appointed in 2020.
The split between Guerra and LVMH is consensual, according to both parties. “I am delighted that the group and I will still be able to benefit from Andrea's advice, as he will now continue to collaborate as a consultant,” said LVMH’s CEO Bernard Arnault. “The group’s culture of success, established through the prism of excellence, has deeply inspired me,” said Guerra, adding that “the last two years have been especially intense. I now wish to pursue other entrepreneurial projects.”
Guerra is set to return to Italy where, according to sources cited by the local media, he will focus on a major new venture. Either as an investor, setting up an investment fund in which it is rumoured Bernard Arnault might join in, or by taking the helm of a luxury label and an investment fund.
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