Still, what Campara stands out for the most is his leadership and communication style, which is intently focused on fostering emotional connections with not only his customers but also his employees and collaborators. “My recommendation to other leaders is to keep exercising their listening skills. And it’s not about just listening with your ears but also with your heart and your instincts,” he says. “You need to understand what people fear or dream about, what is making them happy or angry. And you need to lead with empathy, which means to always take a step back and put yourself in someone else’s shoes, in order to make the next two steps forward. If you can do that in today’s world, then you can really succeed in making a brand meaningful.”
He credits a number of mentors with helping him develop his managerial skills, including Style Capital CEO Roberta Benaglia (“She showed me that every single action you take is there, reflecting in the full P&L”) and former Armani Exchange global director Andrea Paoluzzi, who taught him the importance of letting your team see what you see.
The first seeds for Campara’s own brand of management, however, can be traced back to the time he worked as an events co-ordinator and assistant store manager for Alexander McQueen in London. “Giovanni Pisu, the then global retail director of Alexander McQueen, taught me that leadership is directly related to energy. Any time he would enter the store, everyone felt his presence. He always had a smile on his face and the ability to make you feel like the most important person on the planet. He wasn’t faking it, he probably is the person most devoted to people I’ve ever met,” he recounts.
He is known for saying that instead of chief executive officer, he would rather his job title be chief emotional officer. Which could be seen as a little cheesy but, in his case, it’s genuine and it works — Golden Goose products sell and the company keeps growing. At the Vogue Business Global Summit in Lake Como back in May, which Campara attended as a speaker, the line of people waiting to talk to him was long.
“People tend to joke about the chief emotional officer thing, but it’s not a joke and it’s not a strategy. It’s the reason why we are successful,” he shrugs. “Anyone can have ideas, but nothing will come out of an idea if you don’t put your heart into it and dress it with emotions.”
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