Young, female, Asian ... Fashion is finally diversifying as global leaders, including Gucci and Chloe’s owners, get Chinese females executives on board – at last
Ten years ago, a standard executive boardroom at a top luxury company would mostly consist of white men. But in recent years, fashion’s lack of diversity in relation to race, gender and body representation has come under fire. The global luxury industry’s external marketing, imagery and messaging have a long way to go in this regard, and internally, it has struggled to put diverse faces into executive positions of power.
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But as new plus-size and black markets continue to grow and China gains in economic power, the current lack of racial and gender diversity within many luxury company executive boardrooms has rendered those companies powerless to connect with a different range of communities.
Recently, pivotal appointments have signalled that companies are trying to remedy the disconnect between their leadership and consumer demand. Notably in the Chinese market, several trailblazing female leaders have started to break through that predominately white and male-dominated executive culture by earning a seat at some of the industry’s most impressive luxury board tables.
Earlier in July, Judy Liu was appointed executive board member of the e-commerce fashion platform Farfetch after serving as the company’s managing director in China. She will manage multiple cross-functioning departments, including marketing, operations, and products.
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With over 15 years of relevant experience, Liu’s insights into business development, digital marketing and the changing e-commerce ecosystem should be a valuable asset in Farfetch’s growth plan for China. “This is a great responsibility the board and our founder Jose Neves is giving me,” Liu said. “It shows Farfetch’s commitment to the China market and the importance of the Chinese consumer in the luxury industry.”
Jean Liu, who worked in a leadership role at Didi, China’s version of Uber, joined the board of the international luxury group Kering as a director in June, where she became the first-ever Asian member of its distinguished board. Liu is one of the few high-ranking women in China’s tech sector and has been a strong advocate for female leadership. While she was at Didi, Liu made sure female staff members were allowed to move up in a company where women occupied 37 per cent of leadership positions.
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Notably, many of these new female executives come from tech backgrounds. And with their first-hand experience in the Chinese market (which is much more digitally advanced than Western markets), these companies are gaining valuable expertise in tracking consumer behaviours while staying on top of the latest tech innovations.
In 2019, online fashion marketplace Moda Operandi appointed Ming Yang, who was the company’s first employee in China, as its managing director in China. During that same year, Yating Wu was appointed chief executive officer of a joint venture between Swiss luxury giant Richemont and Alibaba Group, the owner of the South China Morning Post. Wu previously worked at Unilever for 15 years in several senior positions and has extensive knowledge of Asia’s digital and e-commerce fields.
Way back in 2017, Richemont Group, which owns luxury labels such as Cartier, Chloe and Jaeger-LeCoultre, appointed its first-ever China-born member, the economist Jin Keyu, to its board of directors. Times are, slowly but surely, changing.
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This article originally appeared on Jing Daily.
Fashion has long suffered from a lack of diversity, but Farfetch, Kering and Richemont are making headway by appointing Chinese-born female executives to their boards