Veronica Bertozzi is new MSGM CEO as label launches new strategy

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Sep 16, 2021

MSGM has officially announced that Veronica Bertozzi has become its CEO, although she has been working in the role since the summer. Her arrival comes with a strategy shift and an ambitious growth plan.

She described the label as “a brand with enormous potential that has proved to have a distinctive character and a unique DNA. Today more than ever, it is ready to assert itself as a big name in the industry, without losing sight of the youthful and innovative style that distinguishes it, and indeed focussing on those qualities with even greater commitment”.

And she added that “the future of fashion belongs to the new generations and MSGM is able to address them in a way that few of its competitors can, covering a very important market share”.

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Roberta Benaglia, CEO of Style Capital, the asset management company that holds a 32% share of MSGM, called Bertozzi “an extremely competent manager with deep knowledge of the sector” and said “MSGM is a brand with great growth potential that the new management structure will certainly be able to exploit”.

Creative director Massimo Giorgetti also said he’s “thrilled to have her on board and to write the next chapter of the brand’s history with her”.

Bertozzi joined the firm after spending 14 years at Stella McCartney, latterly as EMEA president. But her arrival is more than just new leadership as it also represents “part of a change in strategy: after years of growth and success with the support of multi-label showroom partners, the brand has decided to create an independent structure entirely internalising the commercial division”, it said.

Part of that will see it moving into new headquarters next year, “where all the brand’s activity will be concentrated and from which it will operate its new worldwide sales showroom, with a new team organised by markets, to present womenswear and menswear ready-to-wear collections, the sustainable Fantastic Green capsule, as well as shoes and accessories”.

That footwear and accessories unit will also be the focus of “a development and strengthening strategy, with the medium-term aim of turning it into a core business that can support the brand’s growth and positioning”.

And it said that “new Italian designers and suppliers will contribute their expertise to the project which will see the introduction of seasonal and ongoing hero products: recognisable designs with a strong and individual identity”.

With this accessories expansion, it wants to add to its popularity in Europe, Korea, Japan and China and “further strengthen its presence in its core markets while staying loyal to its DNA”.

The first fruits of the change will be seen with the AW22 collection, although the label’s catwalk return this month for the SS22 show will “give a taste of the new strategy with targeted additions from the shoes and bags division”.

The firm is expecting the new strategy to help its “future growth considerably exceed predicted results for 2021, when the company already counts on returning to 2019 pre-Covid results”.