Jean-Jacques Guiony has been Lvmh’s CFO for almost 20 years, and will hand over the reins to Cécile Cabanis at an unspecified date. This former Danone employee has just been appointed Deputy CFO.
Lvmh invents its managerial future…
Jean-Jacques Guiony, the luxury group’s emblematic CFO, himself announced in a press release dated June 7 the appointment of Cécile Cabanis as his future replacement, at a date not yet specified.
Cécile Cabanis will start out as Deputy CFO, although she will join the Group’s Executive Committee as of now.
However, she will report to Jean-Jacques Guiony “to begin a transition period with him, with a view to future succession”. The current CFO will organize “the gradual handover of his responsibilities to ensure that Cécile Cabanis takes over this strategic function for Lvmh”.
No specific handover date
Although no date has been specified, we can imagine that the transition period will not last too long. A graduate of HEC (1984), Jean-Jacques Guiony himself joined Lvmh in 2003 as Deputy Group CFO, before being appointed CFO in 2004. After starting his career with Banque Nationale de Paris, Merrill Lynch in London and Lazard Frères’ Mergers & Acquisitions department, Jean-Jacques Guiony was appointed Group CFO.
Jean-Jacques Guiony, now 62, will not be leaving the Group just yet, and “his new responsibilities will be announced at a later date”.
Since 2010, he has combined his role as CFO of Lvmh with that of CEO of the renovated La Samaritaine department store, which is due to reopen in 2021.
Recognized experience in major groups
Cécile Cabanis, 53, a graduate engineer from the Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grig, has “recognized experience in very large groups, in diversified finance functions, particularly in M&A and financial communications”.
After starting her career in 1995 with L’Oréal in South Africa, she was appointed Mergers & Acquisitions Director at Orange. In 2004, she joined the Danone Group, where she stayed for 17 years.
She distinguished herself in key positions – Director of Corporate Finance, Director of Mergers & Acquisitions, then Director of Finance for the Fresh Products division – before becoming Group Finance Director in 2015, in charge of strategy, information systems, digital transformation, purchasing and sustainable development.
Since 2021, she has been Deputy Managing Director at Tikehau Capital, a company specializing in asset management.
Lvmh prepares the next generation
“Preparing the succession in key positions is one of our priorities”, stresses the group’s press release.
Jean-Jacques Guiony is not the first at the Number One in luxury goods to be overtaken by age.
Last April, Antonio Belloni, 69, until then number two at the luxury group, was replaced by an ex-Yves Rocher man, Stéphane Bianchi, a decade younger…
But Sidney Toledano, 72, had already managed to keep the reins of Dior, which he had run for 20 years, until 2018, and those of LVMH Fashion Group, until January 2024. Michael Burke, former CEO of Louis Vuitton, then took over…Except that Sidney Toledano’s return to the helm of the division that includes Celine, Givenchy, Loewe, Kenzo, Marc Jacobs and Patou is imminent, according to specialist media Glitz and The Business of Fashion…Lvmh has not yet confirmed or denied the news.
Bernard Arnault: urgent to wait…
Finally, for Bernard Arnault, the creator and CEO of Lvmh, it’s urgent to wait…His 75th birthday, in 2024, should have signaled retirement for him. Except that this age limit was conveniently raised to 80 in 2022, at the Annual General Meeting.
For their part, Bernard Arnault’s descendants continue to have access to the management bodies of the group and its satellites. Frédéric Arnault, the fourth of the CEO’s five children, took the reins of the group’s watch business in January, before becoming deputy CEO of Financière Agache (which holds controlling stakes in Dior and Lvmh) at the beginning of June. Along with his brother Alexandre, Vice-Chairman of Tiffany & co, he also joined the Lvmh Board of Directors in April, where Delphine Arnault and Antoine Arnault, Bernard Arnault’s elders, already sit. The former is CEO of Dior, while the latter is CEO of Christian Dior SE and Chairman of Berluti and Loro Piana.
There should be no shortage of candidates to succeed Bernard Arnault…
Discover our plans Subscribe for 1€ Become an active member of the community of luxury leaders.
To continue reading this article, subscribe or log in to your account
Read also > LVMH: CATHERINE NEWEY TAKES THE HELM AT DFS EUROPE
Featured Photo: © LVMH
