Sergio Rossi names ex-Hindmarch and Belstaff chief Wright as new CEO

Sergio Rossi has a new Global CEO with Helen Wright taking over from interim CEO Paul Kotrba after a career spent in the fashion industry’s higher-end in her native Australia and in London.

Wright has “over 25 years’ experience gained in corporate, private equity, and owner founder settings for multi-national businesses” and is a senior leader in international fashion, luxury and lifestyle consumer brands.

The company said she has a strong track record in “business transformation, and building scale and value for shareholders, always with a customer-centric approach”.

She “will concentrate on the strategic transformation of the house, defining and leading [its] global strategy, collaborating with stakeholders and valued business partners to deliver sustainable growth”. 

We’re told that there will be a “key focus on collection content, distribution channel optimisation, brand visibility and execution, and the continued development and commercial strategy for vital markets” such as North America, UAE, Japan, and Greater China.

Wright was born in Sydney, Australia, and started her retail, operations and merchandise career at that country’s upscale department stores business David jones. She held various executive positions over 10 years before moving to London in 1999.

At that point, she took on regional leadership roles at high-profile brands including time spent at Ralph Lauren building and operating the European retail and merchandising division, at LVMH/Fendi as President EMEI, and as Global Vice-President Retail at Karl Lagerfeld.

She joined Anya Hindmarch in 2015 as CEO, working alongside Hindmarch “to drive collection evolution and deliver a growth agenda via investment in on- and offline distribution and marketing channels, and expanded geographies”. 

Her next role, in 2018, was at Belstaff where in a three-year period she led its “transformation, restructuring its operations, onboarding key executive talent, transforming collection content and expanding product categories”.

That included the undeniably tough period of the pandemic during which she had to temporarily shutter all of the label’s stores. After that she took a career break that included voluntary work and advisory, before becoming CEO of Bloch international last year.

Wright said of her role that the company has “important new horizons and new audiences to reach as we revitalise this great company. We’re inspired by our past, and motivated by the bright future we have already started to build together.”

The company thanked Paul Kotrba who took over as its interim CEO in place of Riccardo Sciutto during April.

China’s Fosun, the controlling shareholder of Lanvin Group acquired Sergio Rossi in mid-2021. It bought the brand from Absolute Luxury Holding, a division of European investment house Investindustrial, which in turn had acquired the brand from Kering in 2015.