The right-hand man of the group's historic chief financial officer, Jean-Marc Duplaix, now takes over. Armelle Poulou is taking over as CFO of the parent company of Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Balenciaga. He will take up his position on 1 September. However, Poulou will continue to report on operations to Jean-Marc Duplaix, who has been CFO for 11 years and who has now been promoted to become one of the two deputy CEOs, in charge of operations and finance, as the group itself announced a few days ago.
Poulou is a graduate of the HEC business school and has been with Kering since 2019. She has a long and extensive experience in the finance sector: more than 20 years in the energy sector, at the French giant EDF. He has also worked at Procter&Gamble and in technology with Hewlett Packard.
Changes in the hierarchies of the group
In July, the Kering Group announced a series of changes to its organisational structure through its press office. On the one hand, the Board of Directors, together with the Nominations and Governance Committee, made official the appointment of Maureen Chiquet as an independent director for the remainder of Daniela Riccardi's term of office and she will join Kering's Board of Directors in September.
Francesca Bellettini, President and CEO of Yves Saint Laurent since 2013, in addition to her current position, will now serve as Deputy CEO of Kering, in charge of Brand Development. She will be responsible for all the brands' CEOs and will be in charge of running the Group's Houses. Bellettini will progressively assume her new roles and responsibilities over the coming months.
The group Kering continuous growing
The Kering group closed the first half of 2023 with a turnover of 10.135 billion euros, which was 2% more than a year ago, even with the decline in sales of Gucci.
This move was announced just one day after the French luxury conglomerate made official the purchase of 30% of Valentino for a figure that reached 1.7 billion euros. In addition, the company reserves an option to acquire the remaining 70% of Valentino's share capital by 2028 at the latest.
Kering is also seeking to strengthen and specialise with Kering Beauté, and therefore, as the company's CEO assured, we will see moves that will be in line with this objective pursued by the French luxury conglomerate.