Federico Marchetti leaves Yoox after 21 years

The founder of Italian fashion e-commerce leaves his position as president three years after the acquisition of Ynap by the luxury group Richemont

(Photo: Getty Images) From a startup in the early days of the net economy to a company valued at 5.4 billion euros that ended up in one of the largest financial luxury galaxies in the world: this is the parable of Yoox, since 2015 Yoox Net-a-Porter, the company founded in 2000 by Federico Marchetti, 52, who announced during a meeting of the holding company to leave every position from the Richemont group. Starting from a warehouse in Casalecchio di Reno, when no one believed in the possibility of selling high-end fashion online, the Ravenna-based man has become "the geek of chic" on the pages of The New Yorker and is now preparing to participate in a project launched by Prince Charles of England for sustainable fashion.

Raised in Romagna, graduated from Bocconi, Marchetti works in the United States in an investment bank, then in a consulting firm in Italy and finally launches his project , the Yoox brand inspired by the Y and X chromosomes and by the suggestion of the two zeros of the millennium. Among the lenders who believe in the idea are Elserino Piol, one of the first players in the Italian venture capital, and the founder of Diesel Renzo Rosso. The company grew until it landed on the Stock Exchange in 2009, Ftse index of the Star segment, and then left it and returned to the main list in 2013, Ftse Mib. In an interview with SkyTg24 in the frame of Vite - The art of the possible, Marchetti recalled how "90% of the luxury fashion brands around Europe, Italy and France above all made their debut on the internet. with Yoox ".

The next step is the merger in 2015 with the Net-a-Porter group, another online fashion company, controlled by Richemont, creating an ecommerce platform with 3 million active customers in 180 countries of the world. Three years later, however, the Swiss luxury giant buys the entire free float of Ynap (Yoox Net-A-Porter Group), taking control of it and leading to the delisting of the stock from Piazza Affari. In 2017, ecommerce generates 2.5 billion in turnover, of which one billion from mobile alone. Last January Marchetti left the role of CEO to Geoffroy Lefebvre and now he is also abandoning the role of president to return to being an entrepreneur. “I certainly don't see myself going back, I don't see myself going back to being an employee. By now I like the entrepreneur DNA too much and therefore the only thing I can really do is either help others or have my own project ", he explained to SkyTg24.

A company, Yoox, that Marchetti would like survived him and that he lives “like my creature, my son”. Now, the Prince of Wales has offered him to lead a fashion task force under the Sustainable Markets initiative, in which Ynap herself participates. For him Marchetti has already created another project, The Modern Artisan, the royal had invited him to collaborate, chatting during a "dinner". "I thought of inventing a new way of seeing the craft of the artisan, of giving artisans new tools such as digital, big data and artificial intelligence, so as to attract a little more young people", he explained during the interview. A project already in its second version, he added: "It will always remain at Yoox Net A Porter, even without me, it's a bit of my legacy at Yoox Net A Porter".


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Topics

Digital business Ecommerce Made in Italy startup globalData.fldTopic = " Digital business, Ecommerce, Made in Italy, startup "

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