The encyclopedia · People & Management · People decision · 2024–2025
Elisabetta Franchi hired Gucci's ex-CEO as chairman — 18 months later he was gone too
Betty Blue hired ex-Gucci CEO Bizzarri as chairman and ex-Stella McCartney CEO Maggio as CEO in 2024. Both were out by October 2025, profit down 37.6%.
Elisabetta Franchi · Betty Blue S.p.A. · Nessifashion · 2025-10
What happened
Elisabetta Franchi is a Bologna ready-to-wear label built by its namesake designer and held by Betty Blue S.p.A. In February 2024 the company hired Gabriele Maggio, who had just left as CEO of Stella McCartney, as its own chief executive. Two months later it went further, naming Marco Bizzarri — the executive who had run Gucci through its most profitable decade — as chairman. Bizzarri said he would personally invest in the company, buying up to 23% of Betty Blue through a newly created family holding vehicle, Nessifashion.
Neither hire lasted 18 months. In September 2025 Bizzarri's chairmanship ended 'for end of term', with Franchi herself stepping in as chair. A month later, Betty Blue's shareholders terminated Maggio's mandate as CEO with immediate effect — a short company statement said the move was 'in the company's exclusive interest, to guarantee management continuity'. The 2024 accounts, filed around the same time, showed net profit down 37.6% year over year to €24.8M on revenue of €168.4M.
Why it happened
- Betty Blue paired two executives from much larger luxury groups — Gucci and Stella McCartney — atop a family-founded label, without a clear split of authority from the founder-designer.
- Bizzarri's chairmanship was pitched as an investment, not just a title, but he left before the announced 23% purchase was shown to have closed, leaving no capital commitment behind the shake-up.
- Both executives arrived within two months of each other in 2024 and left within a month of each other in 2025, so the outside professionalisation the hires promised evaporated in a single quarter.
- Net profit fell 37.6% during the year both were in charge, undercutting the premise that luxury-conglomerate leadership would improve performance at a mid-market house.
The lesson
Hiring star executives from bigger luxury houses doesn't fix a mid-market brand's numbers by itself — and if the pitch includes buying a stake, the hire isn't finished until the money changes hands.
Aftermath
Elisabetta Franchi took over as chair of Betty Blue herself, folding the leadership back into founder control after two outside hires from Gucci and Stella McCartney had lasted about 18 months between them. The company has not named a permanent replacement CEO. In April 2026 Betty Blue also entered a labour dispute with unions in Bologna over a stalled company-level contract renewal, with workers rejecting proposed changes to meal vouchers and smart-working terms.
Sources
spotted an error? The club wants to know.
More like this
Roberto Cavalli ran seven months without a CEO — then its Swiss site and 80 jobs went
Blumarine was bought, halved and relaunched — six years on, production is ending
BasicNet bought Woolrich Europe, then told 139 workers to move to Turin or quit
Somewhere, someone solved the problem this company failed at. 2nd Opinion →
Comments · 0
Sign in to join the comments.