FENDI NEWS: Francesca Leoni is joining Fendi as global chief communication officer, WWD has learned.
She was previously chief brand officer at Michael Kors from 2018 until March this year and succeeds Cristiana Monfardini. As reported, Monfardini is exiting Fendi after 20 years at the luxury brand.
Leoni brings to Fendi her 25 years of experience in fashion and luxury, overseeing all facets of brand communication. Leoni is familiar with newly appointed chief creative officer Maria Grazia Chiuri, having worked with the designer before.
As global communications and image director at Valentino in Rome between 2010 and 2018, Leoni worked with Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli who were co-creative directors at the couture house at the time, then-led by CEO Stefano Sassi. Chiuri left Valentino in the summer of 2016. Leoni’s duties also included the management of archival initiatives and vintage acquisitions.
Before Valentino, she was global communications director at Bulgari, another Rome-based house, from 2005 to 2010. She spearheaded PR, events, and global marketing across jewelry, fragrance, and skincare, and developed storytelling strategies around the brand’s new hospitality project, when Bulgari launched the first three hotels in Milan, Bali, and London. Leoni also oversaw the jewelry archives and orchestrated acquisitions through private clients and international auctions at Bulgari as well and was responsible for orchestrating the first Bulgari retrospective exhibition in Rome in 2009, followed by Paris a year later.
From 2000 to 2005 she was public relations and cultural affairs director at Hermès in New York and Paris and before that she was U.S. public relations director at Malo Cashmere in New York from 1993 to 2000.
