Nicolas Baretzki, chief executive officer of Montblanc since 2016, is to exit the Hamburg-based luxury house, WWD has learned.
A Montblanc spokeswoman confirmed that Baretzki would be leaving, but declined further comment.
It is understood he will stay on for a few months, and his successor has yet to be named. Baretzki’s next move could not immediately be learned.
The executive had an eventful tenure leading Montblanc, part of Swiss luxury group Compagnie Financière Richemont, parent of brands including Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Chloé and Dunhill.
In March 2021, he tapped seasoned leather goods designer Marco Tomasetta as Montblanc’s creative director, tasking him with accelerating the brand’s transformation into a “luxury business-lifestyle maison.”
Montblanc’s diverse products range from writing instruments and timepieces to leather goods, accessories, fragrances and eyewear.
Baretzki’s crowning achievement was the 2022 opening of Montblanc Haus, a new brand temple in Hamburg housing elements of a museum, art gallery, hall of fame and school in a sleek black edifice stamped with the German brand’s famous snowcap emblem. (The building’s design is an homage to historic pen packaging.)
Located next to Montblanc’s headquarters, and production facilities for its precious resin writing instruments and hand-ground gold nibs, the three-story structure also boasts a café, exhibition spaces, writing ateliers, an archive and academy.
During his tenure, Baretzki also forged a collaboration with Maison Kitsuné, tapped French soccer legend Zinédine Zidane as a brand ambassador, and unveiled a hotel-like flagship at 152 Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris.
“We really wanted to deepen our retail experience by taking inspiration from the way in which luxury boutique hotels today offer such a multifaceted, immersive universe,” he explained in an interview last year.
Baretzki had been executive vice president, sales of Montblanc, since 2013. He was with Jaeger-LeCoultre as international sales director for 12 years, and earlier worked at Cartier in various marketing and general management roles for eight years. He is a graduate of École des hautes études commerciales in Paris.