Luxury Leadership
5 Minute Read
Diversity and Inclusion in Luxury Leadership
11th January 2024
Over 50% of all luxury products are sold by luxury’s largest group of companies.
These groups include LVMH ; owner of brands like Louis Vuitton and Kering which owns Saint Laurent.
These brands are some of the most sought after and prestigous in the world.
But who leads the world’s favourite luxury brands?
With the importance of having a diverse workforce and leadership becoming important to all companies.
How diverse is Leadership in Luxury’s (Top) most valuable companies?
This report and analysis is focused on Luxury’s Top Companies and the brands they own which are defined in this reports as LVMH, Kering, Chanel, Hermes, Richemont, Moncler, Prada Group and Capri Group.
The term ‘ Top Luxury CEO’ or related phrases refers to an individual who is the Chief Executive Officer of a ‘Top luxury company’.
Discover insights to the diversity of Luxury’s Top CEOs.
*Data accurate Dec 2023
Women occupy 28% of Luxury CEO roles in Luxury’s Top Companies
30 Women CEOs in Luxury’s Top Companies
LVMH & Kering have the most Women CEOS
60% of Luxury’s Top Perfume & Cosmetics brands are led by Women
Only 5% of Luxury’s Top CEOs are People of Colour
82% of Luxury’s Top CEOs are University or College Educated
66% of University educated Top Luxury CEO’s studied Business
France most popular country where Top CEOs are educated
Insead most popular Business School where Luxury CEOs are educated
Average age of Top Luxury Woman CEO is 52 vs Men which is 49
Takes Top Luxury Women CEOs on average 4 years more to become CEO than Men
There are 109 CEOs in the Top Luxury Companies.
28% of these Luxury CEOs are women. This is inline with the wider business world average. In 2019 29% of all global senior management roles were filled by women.
Luxury’s Top Companies are publicly listed companies and of the 500 largest public listed companies in the world or the S&P 500 Women CEOs have delivered higher profits and returns for investors over the last 10 years.
With Luxury’s Top Companies and the industry as a sector slowing down recently. Are more Luxury Women CEOs the answer to growth?
In 2023 there are 30 women CEOs at the Top Luxury Companies.
Between these women the companies they lead generate annual revenue of around £50 billion.
If they were a country that would put them in the top 100 countries by GDP or the income made my countries from selling goods or services.
Some Top Luxury Companies however have more Women CEOs than others.
LVMH has the most amount of Women CEOs. 64 in total of which 19 are women and 45 are Men.
LVMH owns over 60 Top Luxury Companies more than any of the Top Luxury groups so has more opportunity to hire and promote Women CEOs.
Kering which owns 18 Top Luxury Companies has 12 CEOs. 4 of which are women and 9 are men.
33% of Kering’s CEOs are Women compared to 29% for LVMH.
This is much higher compared to the world’s most valuable top companies. The world’s most valuable companies are listed on the stock exchange including the Fortune 500 and S&P 500.
Only 8% of Fortune 500 CEOs are Women. 6% of S&P 500 companies are run by women.
Interestingly some types of Luxury’s Top Companies have much more women ceos than others.
If you are a Women CEO at a Top Luxury company you are much more likely to be working in Perfume and Cosmetics.
15 of the 109 Top Luxury CEOs work in Perfume and Cosmetics of which 9 are Women CEOs.
Which means there are more Women CEOs working in Luxury’s Top Companies than Men CEOs.
Watches and Jewellry are the least diverse in terms of Women CEOs at luxury’s top companies.
Luxury’s Top Companies are very diverse when it comes to gender. How diverse are they when it comes to ethnicity?
Out of the 109 Top Luxury CEOs there are only 5 people of colour (5% of total) or those that are not white caucasians.
They are Charles Leung CEO of LVMH brand Fred Paris, Leena Nair CEO of Chanel, Mehdi Benabadji CEO of Brioni, Rihanna who is the CEO of LVMH owned Fenty Beauty which she founded and Ada Lien CEO of fresh.
With Luxury’s Top companies looking to expand into new fast growing markets like India and China the 2nd largest luxury market.
Should there be more people of colour luxury ceos at luxury’s top companies?
98% of Fortune 500 ceos have a college or university education. How many of Luxury’s top ceo’s have a college education?
Out of 109 Top Luxury CEOs 89 have stated on their LinkedIn profile that they have attended University or College.
20 have not attended or have not declared if they attended University or College.
What subjects are most popular with Top Luxury CEOs at college?
Overwhelmingly Business is the most studied subject by Top Luxury CEOs at college and university.
This is true for both Women and Men CEOs.
Engineering and Technology are the next most popular subjects studied by Luxury’s Top CEOs.
However they only represent 9% and 5% respectively of subjects studied by the CEOs.
With most of the Top Luxury companies going through digital transformation. It begs the question “Do we need more Top Luxury CEOs with an educational background in technology?
One consistent trend amongst Top Luxury CEOs is which country they received their education.
49% of the Top Luxury CEOs with a college or University education were educated in France.
Not so surprising as LVMH , Kering and Richemont are french companies and the brands they own are mostly french.
Luxury’s Top Companies hire CEOs from the countries of their origin or where they were started.
As these companies are global brands with employees and customers all over the world it is likely that in the future there will be more CEOs form outside France.
Top Luxury CEOs are educated in France and study business at a select handful of elite colleges and universities.
Luxury’s Top CEOs mostly go to Insead Business school to study post graduate masters and executive business MBA’s.
Insead is one of the top ranked graduate business school and provide tailored executive business courses for the modern business leader.
Post graduate MBA business schools are the most attended by the CEOs . HEC Paris and ESSEC Business Colleges are also popular.
Gender, Race and Education are important when it comes looking at Diversity and Inclusion in Luxury Leadership.
What about age? How old is the average Top Luxury CEO?
The average age of a Top Luxury CEO is 51 with men marginally older than the women ceos.
This is compared to the S&P 500 average age of ceos which is 54 when they start the top job.
The average Top Luxury CEO is younger than the top ceos at the worlds most valuable companies.
Luxury’s top companies are working on becoming more diverse and inclusive and providing more opportunities for women, people of colour and those from underrepresented groups.
How much harder is it for a woman or a person of colour to become a Top Luxury CEO?
On average it takes a Top Luxury CEO 21 years from the day they start their first job to when they become the ceo.
It takes women 4 years more time to become a top luxury ceo than men.
Meaning that the road to becoming a top luxury ceo is similar between men and women is similar in terms of time.
Interestingly of the 5 people of colour top luxury ceos they average time it took for them to become ceo is 26 years. 6 years more than than the average.
The top Luxury companies are very diverse when it comes to the women that lead their companies compared to the worlds biggest and most valuable companies.
You are more likely to become a CEO if you are a woman working in Luxury’s top companies than you are in the equivalent company in another sector.
More so if you choose to work for a perfume or cosmetics company. Your journey to the top job is also very similar to men in terms of time it take sto get the top job.
Luxury’s Top CEOs are mostly white, male, french and study business at one of the elite french business schools.
People of colour CEOs are scarce and it’s a much longer road to the top job.
Luxury’s top companies are leading the way in diversity but there is a lot more work to be done.
Data was collected in October 2023
Top Luxury Company
The term ‘Top Luxury Company’ or related phrases refers to the most valuable Luxury companies in world. These companies are owned by Luxury groups or holding companies which are LVMH, Kering, Chanel, Hermes, Richemont, Moncler, Prada Group and Capri Group.
The analysis of Luxury CEOs included 116 luxury companies from these luxury groups.
Top Luxury CEO
The term ‘ Top Luxury CEO’ or related phrases refers to an individual who is the Chief Executive Officer of a top luxury company.
The analysis is of 109 Top Luxury CEOs is based on data from their Linked In profiles.
Luxury Person of Colour CEO - is a CEO of a Top Luxury Company that is not ethnically caucasian.
Top Luxury CEO Education Background Data
This data is based on information declared by the Top Luxury CEOs on their LinkedIn profiles
Top Luxury CEO Age Data
Analysis is based on public data sources including company websites, LinkedIn and publications.
The Average Top Luxury CEO Age by Gender
The CEO Ages were calculated by checking a specific CEO’s LinkedIn profile, checking the year they started university, subtracting 18 from this year to retrieve their date of birth, then finally subtracting the current year (2023) by their date of birth to output the age.
The average Top Luxury CEO age by gender was calculated by multiplying the total ages of all the CEOs and dividing by the total number of CEOs.
Average CEO Age = Total Age of CEOs ÷ Total Number of CEOs
The average total ages of Women and Men Top Luxury CEOs was calculated by using the same formula for Women and Men CEOs.
Calculation of average years it takes Top Luxury CEOs to become CEO by gender
To determine the average years for a Top Luxury CEO to become a CEO of a Top Luxury Company by gender analysis of their LinkedIn profile was undertaken.
Total years to becoming CEO is the date between starting their first job and the date they became CEO.
Average years to becoming CEO = Total years to becoming CEO ÷ Total Number of CEOs
The average years to becoming a Top Luxury CEO for Women and Men was calculated using the same formula for Women and Men CEOs.
