Michael Burke is certainly the American executive most highly regarded by Bernard Arnault. The former head of Louis Vuitton joined the French luxury magnate’s group in the 1980s. His appointment as president and CEO of LVMH Americas, effective July 7, brings the company full circle.
This Bernard Arnault loyalist, who headed Louis Vuitton until 2023, is taking on this new challenge, as first revealed by the American industry trade daily, WWD.
He will report directly to Stéphane Bianchi, the group’s chief executive officer, while Anish Melwani, chief executive officer of LVMH Inc. and Davide Marcovitch, president of LVMH Latin America, will report to him, according to an internal memo seen by FashionNetwork.com.
Above all, at a time when the geopolitical context is proving complex and relations between the United States and the European Union have become strained around the subject of customs duties, the arrival of Michael Burke, after a short-lived stint at the head of the Fashion Group in 2024, may deliver two strong messages.
On the one hand, his return to the United States, 40 years after he began managing the group’s investments across the Atlantic and then directing the activities of Dior and Louis Vuitton in this zone, is a message about the importance of this market, which represents no less than a quarter of the group’s global sales, which reached 84.7 billion euros in 2024.
Like his parallel appointment as non-executive chairman of the board of Tiffany & Co., it also signals Arnault’s desire to exercise precise control over his American activities. The 67-year-old’s arrival on the American jeweler’s board is presented as “strategic support.”
In 2024, the brand, the largest acquisition in the group’s history, experienced a number of upheavals, including a rebellion by some of its long-standing employees, followed by the departure of others. The arrival of the highly experienced American executive should also enable the company to deploy the potential expected by the group.
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