Former Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri invests in Elisabetta Franchi

Marco Bizzarri is beginning a new chapter. After eighteen years with Kering at the helm of some of the group’s finest houses, including Gucci from 2015 to 2023, the manager is announcing a new phase in his professional life, “focused on investments in companies and human resources of value”. His first operation involves the Elisabetta Franchi label. “It’s a great privilege for me to work alongside passionate people with whom I can create fruitful synergies,” he says.

Through Nessifashion, a newly created holding company of which he is the sole director and which is owned by his company Nessi SRL, Marco Bizzarri has taken a minority stake in the Italian ready-to-wear brand. This investment, the amount of which he is not disclosing, “represents a stake that could rise to 23%”, the press release states, while the manager becomes chairman of Elisabetta Franchi.

The entrepreneurial designer founded her company Betty Blue in 1998 in Bologna (central Italy), offering high-end, glamorous women’s ready-to-wear. Over the last decade, the label has accelerated its retail and international expansion, with 85 single-brand shops in 78 countries. It is also distributed through a network of multi-brand boutiques.

The company, which produces mainly in Italy and employs 300 people, has raised its profile in the premium segment over the years, broadening its offering to include accessories (shoes, bags, jewellery), swimwear and a line for girls, while it has recently joined forces with Pronovias to launch a bridal line. Managed since the start of the year by Gabriele Maggio, the label, which has been showing at Milan Fashion Week since September 2014, had planned to list on the stock exchange in 2019, but the project was put on hold due to the Covid pandemic.

“Elisabetta Franchi is a successful, resilient, self-made entrepreneur with a clear vision of how her company will evolve in the future,” says Marco Bizzarri. After topping the €100 million mark in 2016, the highly profitable label is forecasting sales of €170 million for 2023, 50% of which will be generated abroad, with an operating profit margin (Ebit) of 31.8%. According to the manager, this is an asset “with great potential for expansion, both in Europe and internationally”.

In 2021, Marco Bizzarri acquired a stake in Orienta Capital Partners, an Italian financial company specialising in investments in SMEs and SMIs with “high growth potential”. Today, he is on the front line, with the aim of investing “in Italian and international companies active in the fashion and luxury sectors”.

He began his career as a consultant with Accenture, before moving into fashion. After ten years at the helm of Mandarina Duck, then Marithé + François Girbaud, he joined Kering in 2005, where he took charge of Stella McCartney, then Bottega Veneta from 2009, and finally Gucci in 2015, guiding them towards exponential growth. Faced with Gucci’s sharp slowdown in recent years, and following the departure of creative director Alessandro Michele in November 2022, he was in turn dismissed in July 2023.