Rose marie bravo biography of william

Chief Executive Gendarme of Burberry

Born Rose Marie Unsympathetic Pila, c. , in loftiness Bronx, New York, NY; girl of a hair-salon owner bracket a seamstress; married and divorced; married William Jackey (a lonely furniture executive), c. ; children: two stepchildren.

Education: Graduated pass up Fordham University, c.

Addresses:Office—Burberry Ld., Chatham Pl., Hackney, London, B9 6LT, United Kingdom.

Career

Began career because a trainee buyer for Patriarch & Strauss, ; hired laugh assistant buyer, Macy's Department Cargo space chain, ; promoted to 1 and then administrator; in became group vice president for paint, contemporary sportswear, and coats, proliferate senior vice president of dealing until ; served as leading executive of I.

Magnin victuals, ; president of Saks Resources, Inc., ; joined Burberry in the same way chief executive,

Sidelights

American retail ceo Rose Marie Bravo led goodness British raincoat maker Burberry Ltd. into an unprecedented turnaround owing to taking over as chief chief executive officer officer in Bravo's talents, which include a savvy marketing walk off and impeccable fashion sense, be blessed with served to double sales crave the once-beleaguered company and power it into one of authority youngest, hippest luxury brands.

She is one of the highest-paid executives in Europe, and has been called "a brand honour herself in the fashion world" by Fortune magazine's Lauren Goldstein.

Born in the early s, Assassinator is a native of ethics New York City borough cataclysm the Bronx, where she was grew up as Rose Marie La Pila. Her father ran a hair salon on attitude Street, and while her jocular mater was a seamstress by work.

Style a young teen, Bravo won admission to the prestigious Borough High School of Science, person in charge went on to Fordham Doctrine, also in the Bronx. She majored in English literature, impressive graduated almost two years advanced of schedule by taking summertime classes.

Bravo's first job after school had little to do pertain to her choice of major: heritage , she was hired introduce a trainee buyer for Patriarch & Strauss, a New Dynasty City department store chain.

Duo years later, she moved measurement to Macy's Department Stores, position landmark Manhattan retailer, with put in order job as an assistant purchaser. She moved up through nobleness ranks to become an custodian, and in was promoted require the position of group iniquity president responsible for cosmetics, modern sportswear, and coats for Macy's; later in the decade she became senior vice president discern merchandising.

In the department-store acquisition madness of the s, Macy's derivative I.

Magnin, the California-based shopkeeper with a reputation as probity West-Coast home for luxury style. Bravo was tapped to sense it in , and relocate to Magnin headquarters in San Francisco. Over the next unite years, she led the unit through an impressive turnaround, discredit some immense odds, including say publicly gutting of its recently renovated Los Angeles flagship store value the riots.

That same era, Bravo took over as guide of Saks Fifth Avenue, spiffy tidy up high-end retailer with a civilized for carrying an impressive cosmopolitan roster of designer goods. Detractor began adding a number clench hipper luxury labels with neat as a pin younger target market to betrayal sales floor, such as Gucci and Prada, and made tutor cosmetics counters a leading set space for new fragrance configuration from designers.

Bravo was said accede to be in possession of unmixed fabled personal Rolodex, giving multifarious access to some of depiction most famous names in plan, and used it to renew Saks and make it boss destination for fashionistas and from the past shoppers alike.

Her impressive turnround helped the retailer emerge kind a publicly traded company note , but there were work rumors that she and Saks chair Philip Miller did put together agree on some issues. Set up , Bravo shocked the method world by taking over unexpected result Burberry, the venerable British oilskin manufacturer that had fallen shelve hard times.

Founded in infant Thomas Burberry, the man who invented gabardine, the company was known for its high-end raincoats with a distinctive signature up. But its British parent air, Great Universal Stores (GUS), was said to have neglected row over the years, and challenging sacrificed brand prestige for brilliant by selling goods in mass on the so-called "gray market" in Asia.

Once again, Bravo nautical port her hometown for a recent job, moving to London forward beginning what are known primate her trademark hour days be glad about a rather unprepossessing office sustain above Burberry's London factory.

She closed some of the pricey raincoat factories that were break off in England, installed new pc and manufacturing systems, and doomed the services of a adolescent Italian-American designer, Roberto Menichetti, regard retool the Burberry look. Menichetti designed a line of Raincoat women's clothing that made uncluttered stunning runway debut at righteousness ready-to-wear collections in There was also an ad campaign—once take back, likely using Bravo's unerring steadfastness to call in favors—shot dampen Vogue photographer Mario Testino celebrated featuring models Kate Moss spell Stella Tennant, whose own ultra-hip, "Cool Britannia"-identities helped reinvigorate character Burberry brand immensely.

Under Bravo's control, Burberry morphed into Prorsum, magnanimity high fashion line, then practised core collection called Burberry Author and, thirdly, a younger, hipper line of clothing with greatness label "Thomas Burberry." The frugal were stunning: in , honesty British journal the Economist avowed that the country "is get the picture the grip of Burberry passion.

Two years ago, the id was shunned by all on the other hand Asian tourists for its cheap plaid-lined raincoats that not all the more dead men would be trapped wearing. Today, everyone from Rich Spice to Cherie Blair, who wore Burberry to the executive opening of Parliament, is clean its signature camel, black focus on red plaid design." Valued little a company worth $ bomb in when Bravo took truly, in seven years that relationship had increased nearly ten cycle, to $ billion.

Bravo's London jubilation had not been an upfront one, she later noted.

"Burberry was a mess," she told the Economist. "I had many evenings of very frightened. My parents visited me nearby asked: 'You left Fifth Drive for this?'" But her natural sense of what the taste world wanted next was recognised several times over by composite GUS bosses, and she quite good one of the most well-compensated executives in the retail elbow grease.

In , she topped character list of the highest-paid Denizen executives with a $ packet salary package. Though Bravo scarcely ever gives interviews, she has held more than once that other rise to the upper echelons of fashion retailing was clump that unusual, given her innovative start in cosmetics. There, she noted, sharp business minds were already commonplace, and her cut up models were from an a while ago generation, such as Estée Vocaliser and Helena Rubenstein.

"If you've been given this road correspondence and you see that bareness have gone before you innermost achieved, you never have exertion your mind the notion pleasant failure," a journalist from Glasgow's Herald newspaper, Beth Pearson, quoted Bravo as saying. "You conspiracy the notion that you throne do it too, if you're good enough and smart skimpy and make the right decisions."

Sources

Economist, February 3, , p.

7.

Forbes, April 3, , p.

Fortune, November 9, , p.

Herald (Glasgow, Scotland), August 7, , p.

Time, February 16, , p.

WWD, April 18, , p. 75; September 5, , p. 1.

—Carol Brennan