Santoni Names Eraldo Poletto as Its New CEO
MILAN — For the first time in its 48-year history, footwear specialist Santoni is naming a chief executive officer recruited from outside the founding family.
Eraldo Poletto is joining the Marche, Italy-based brand in the role, effective immediately. He succeeds Giuseppe Santoni, who was at the helm of the company since 1990 and is now taking on the role of executive chairman.
More from WWD
“This is not a last-minute decision, I’ve been thinking about it for many years,” Santoni told WWD. “The road to make the company immortal is paved with the implementation of a managerial structure.”
A seasoned executive with extensive experience and knowledge of the U.S. market and footwear business, Poletto was most recently CEO of Diesel, a role he held for seven months until last February. In January 2022, he joined Diesel as CEO of North America.
“It was the right time for me and the company, which needed to be prepared to welcome an executive in that role from outside the family,” Santoni said, highlighting how the past five years were filled with C-suite prep work. This entailed naming executives atop different departments such as human resources, the digital, commercial, as well as finance.
Santoni has experienced steady growth over the past few years, with 2022 sales standing at 98 million euros, a 45 percent increase over the previous year. Santoni said he expects a 20 percent jump in 2023 revenues.
Poletto has been a member of the Santoni board for the past four years and is tasked with further accelerating growth and strengthening the women’s business, as well as enhancing the brand’s footprint in the U.S., already its top performing market, and Asia, Santoni offered.
“Over the past years I had too little time to act as an entrepreneur and map out a strategy for the future, looking at what’s ahead and project both the company and the product into the future,” Santoni said.
The executive touted Poletto’s managerial skills, describing him as a “well-balanced and skilled” professional. “He is focused on the company’s solidity. Just like me he thinks the company comes first, if it works everybody will benefit from it,” he said.
“Santoni is born from the originality that comes from discipline, which does not conflict with creativity; instead, it serves to further develop talent,” said Poletto in a statement. “Excellence in craftsmanship, distinctiveness, as well as engineering and reproducibility of the highest quality attained, are just some of the results that make us unique and incomparable,” he offered.
Before Diesel, Poletto was CEO and brand president of Stuart Weitzman, controlled by Tapestry Inc., a role he held from 2018 to 2020. He was also CEO of Salvatore Ferragamo, which he joined in August 2016 and exited in March 2018, and served as CEO of Furla from 2010 to 2016, helping to grow and globalize that family-owned brand.
About 90 percent of Santoni’s business comes from exports and further accelerating the North American region, including the U.S., Canada and Mexico, is a top priority. In addition to also strengthening its footprint in the Middle East, Santoni doesn’t want to lose opportunities in Asia. The brand has a strong presence in Japan, a country it entered around 30 years ago, but wants to fuel growth in China, restructuring its current distribution partnership.
The executive also mentioned his ambitions to grow online sales, currently standing at 10 percent. “Direct-to-consumer revenues are part of our growth target; we need to enhance the customer experience and improve our digital services,” Santoni said.
The appointment of Poletto comes amid a fast-changing scenario, where luxury powerhouses and brands that are part of conglomerates contribute to the bulk of footwear sales, requiring independent and smaller players to keep up with the former’s distribution and marketing prowess.
Best of WWD
