Eldest daughter of world’s richest person chosen to run €382bn luxury brand as part of shake-up
Delphine Arnault’s appointment comes a month after her brother Antoine was made chief executive and chair of Christian Dior SE. Photograph: Laurent VU/SIPA/REX/Shutterstock
https://www.theguardian.com-Rupert Neate Wealth correspondent
Bernard Arnault, the world’s richest person, has appointed his daughter Delphine to run Christian Dior, the second-biggest brand in his LVMH luxury goods empire.
Arnault, 73, is the chief executive, chair and majority shareholder of the group, which owns a swathe of high-end businesses including Louis Vuitton, Tiffany, Givenchy and Moet Hennessy.
He announced on Wednesday that his eldest daughter would become Dior’s chief executive and chair as part of a shake-up of the €382bn (£337bn) conglomerate.
Delphine Arnault, who is the executive vice-president of Louis Vuitton and in charge of its product product-related activities, will take up the new position from 1 February.
The 47-year-old joined the family business in 2000 after two years at the management consultancy firm McKinsey and studying at the London School of Economics. She joined the LVMH board in 2003 – becoming the first woman and youngest person to serve on it.
Her father said: “Under Delphine’s leadership, the desirability of Louis Vuitton products advanced significantly, enabling the brand to regularly set new sales records. Her keen insights and incomparable experience will be decisive assets in driving the ongoing development of Christian Dior.”
The appointment marks a return to the brand Arnault first worked for in 2001, where she started working on shoes before rising to become a deputy general manager and working directly with Dior’s then creative director, John Galliano.
She was credited with minimising the fallout from Galliano’s racist and antisemitic rants at people in a Paris bar in 2011 that led to him being sacked and convicted for racism and antisemitism.
Arnault has said she was not heavily exposed to the family’s brands or extreme wealth as a child, but remembers getting a brown Louis Vuitton Noé bag (now retailing at £1,160) on her 18th birthday and attending the first lavish party when she was 21.
“I remember very well the 100-year ceremony, in 1996. There was a big party and at the top of the room was Naomi Campbell arriving on stage on a giraffe,” she told the Financial Times in 2014.
Last month, Bernard Arnault appointed his son Antoine as chief executive and chair of Christian Dior SE, the holding company that controls 41% of the capital and 56% of the voting rights in the LVMH group.
All five of his children now hold senior positions within the French company. They may have some time to wait until taking over the running of the family firm, as LVMH last year changed the company’s bylaws to allow a chief executive to continue running the company until the age of 80, up from a previous 75.
Bernard Arnault overtook Elon Musk last month to become the world’s richest person, with an estimated fortune of $178bn, according to the Bloomberg billionaire’s index.