At a ceremony in London’s Royal Festival Hall last Thursday, Marco Bizzarri, the former Gucci chief executive who led the brand during its dramatic growth under creative director Alessandro Michele, offered his words of advice to students entering the fashion industry.
“You’re going to face a lot of hurdles,” he said. “But I really wish you to find in your journey people that are going to love you, that are going to support you, that are going to mentor you, that are going to believe in you, like they believed in me, more than I believed in myself in certain moments. Because nobody — nobody — is born to be a CEO, or creative director.”
Bizzarri gave his address while accepting an honorary degree from the University for the Creative Arts for his vast contributions to the fashion industry. In his more than 30 years in fashion, he served as president and CEO at Stella McCartney and Bottega Veneta before his appointment in 2015 to the top job at Gucci, where he led a historically successful turnaround during his eight-year tenure. One of his first strategic decisions in the role was to name as creative director the relatively unknown Michele, who rebranded the Italian fashion house in his campy, idiosyncratic aesthetic. Between 2015 and 2019, sales more than doubled while profits quadrupled before growth slowed. Bizzarri exited Gucci in 2023.
His guidance comes during a critical moment for fashion newcomers, who face a turbulent industry that has seen challenges to diversity and sustainability, tariff-induced chaos and a steep downturn in luxury spending. In his speech, he recounted his feelings as someone from a small village in Italy arriving in London to take over as CEO of Stella McCartney in 2005. “It was like the dream of my life,” he said, but admitted that it was also scary for him. What helped him were the people he was surrounded by.
He would go on to manage larger and larger companies with different cultures and complexities. While Bizzarri said there was no single formula for success, at the start of any new endeavour he would start by asking himself why and how he wanted to do it.
“The second most important thing is to find who you want to work with, the talents that you want to be with you, that they support you and ideally that are better than you, because if they are better than you, you can start to do other things,” he said. “Never be scared of talents.”
The advice was fitting from Bizzarri, who was known for boosting workplace morale by increasing company transparency, including to retail employees, and who is largely credited with transforming Gucci’s brand culture from one based in fear to one of mutual respect.
Since departing Gucci, Bizzarri has invested in fashion and design through his family holding company, Nessifashion, and co-founded private-equity firm Forel, which acquired a majority stake in Italian luxury interior design brand Visionnaire as its first venture in April 2024. That same month, Bizzarri acquired a 23 percent stake in Italian fashion label Elisabetta Franchi, of which he now serves as chairman. Last September, Bizzarri also became an informal advisor to Margherita Missoni’s womenswear line Maccapani after his family made a minority investment in the brand in his daughter Federica’s name.
Bizzarri joins the ranks of previous UCA honourees including Naomi Campbell, Moncler CEO and chairman Remo Ruffini and Jonathan Anderson, who accepted the distinction last year.
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