Prada Names Roberto Massardi Chief Business Development Officer

MILAN — Prada Group has appointed Roberto Massardi chief business development officer.

This is a new role for the company, but marks a return for Massardi. After holding several roles within the Pirelli Group, he first joined Prada in 1996 as business development director, and was later named general director of Jil Sander when the Hamburg-based brand was controlled by the Italian luxury group. Change Capital Partners acquired Jil Sander in 2006, but Massardi had left a year earlier to join Sportswear Company SpA and its Stone Island brand as its general manager.

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At Prada, Massardi will report to co-chief executive officers Patrizio Bertelli and Miuccia Prada. He will be responsible for the group’s strategic development through the assessment of new business opportunities.

The appointment reflects the strategy outlined by the group during its Capital Markets Day in November, which includes a key goal to reinforce traffic-building categories and selected collaborations, taking licenses to their full potential. Beauty, fine jewelry and home collections were identified as some growth avenues that would contribute to the group’s financial targets. In the medium term, these include reaching revenues of around 4.5 billion euros, which implies almost doubling 2020 figures, when the company posted revenues totaling 2.42 billion euros. The company is also targeting an operating profit of around 20 percent of sales.

Prada is also looking to double the percentage of the group’s online sales to represent 15 percent of retail revenues and to increase the productivity of directly operated stores by 30 to 40 percent.

In November, as reported, Prada experimented with homeware for the first time, opening a boutique in Harrods’ interiors department.

The new, permanent space is located on the department store’s third floor, and is fully dedicated to “homeware and sophisticated accessories.” The pieces have been designed with longtime Prada collaborators including Martino Gamper, a northern Italian designer who’s based in London and who uses reclaimed materials, such as wood and formica, to create new furniture.

The store stocks a mix of handcrafted home objects, including fine porcelain with signature Prada motifs; gold-plated professional dressmaking scissors, and hammered silver cutlery sets, as part of a reedition of Josef Hoffmann’s original 1905 design for Wiener Werkstätte. Gamper, who has worked with the label on many store and window designs in the past, has also created a series of objects for the space including vases, chopping boards and trays featuring geometric patterns and a mix of materials, like wood and colored laminate.

Effective Jan. 1, 2021, Prada and L’Oréal inked a long-term beauty license. Puig had held Prada’s fragrance and beauty license since 2003. In August last year, Prada launched the new men’s scent Luna Rossa Ocean, fronted by Jake Gyllenhaal, followed by the relaunch of the Candy pillar fragrance with a campaign fronted by a virtual face.

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