Powerful Women In Fashion: Francesca Bellettini

Francesca Bellettini was born on 18 April 1970 in Cesena, a city in northern Italy far removed from the centres of fashion. Her family background did not belong to the sector either, yet it proved influential in her trajectory: her father worked as an accountant in a sawmill and her mother was a school principal. This initial distance from the industry is particularly relevant, since unlike many executives in fashion, her vision would emerge from a strictly business-oriented education.

Bellettini studied Business Administration at Bocconi University in Milan, one of the most influential business schools in Europe. From the outset, her interests gravitated towards finance. In the mid-1990s, she began her career in London as an investment banker, working for well-known firms such as Goldman Sachs International, Deutsche Morgan Grenfell and Compass Partners. This period provided her with an unusual experience for the fashion industry: deep skills in financial analysis, strategic market reading and an extensive understanding of the inner workings of large corporations, all before her first contact with the textile sector.

The decisive shift towards fashion came in 1999. While working at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, she met Patrizio Bertelli, CEO of the Prada group. He proposed that she join the group’s planning and development division, marking her first direct contact with the internal structure of a major luxury house. At Prada, she began to familiarise herself with the delicate balance between image, creativity, product and the business dimension that underpins the sector.

Bellettini would later assume the role of Operations Manager at Helmut Lang, a ready-to-wear label of considerable cultural relevance in the 1990s. There, in a smaller-scale environment, she encountered a more experimental segment of prêt-à-porter. This stage of her career proved decisive in understanding how brands function beyond multinational structures, particularly when the creative sphere and corporate organisation work more closely together.

In 2003, she finally joined the Kering group, then still known as PPR. Her first position was Strategic Planning Director and Associate Worldwide Merchandising Director at Gucci. This new role brought together the two dimensions that would define the summit of her career: global commercial strategy and the creation of successful product.

Five years later, she moved to Bottega Veneta, where in 2010 she was appointed Worldwide Merchandising and Communications Director. From that position, she participated in the international expansion of the house, strengthening its strategy and presence in emerging markets.

A decade after joining the group, Bellettini had already moved through nearly every strategic level of global luxury. By 2013, the decisive moment arrived: her appointment as President and CEO of Saint Laurent.

Bellettini would take over the leadership of Saint Laurent at a decisive moment for the maison. The house was moving through a crucial phase of transformation, shaped by creative director Hedi Slimane. Slimane, known for his commercial success and his broad creative control over brands, had driven profound changes in its visual and strategic identity. Among them was one of the most debated: the simplification of the brand’s name, which shifted from Yves Saint Laurent to simply Saint Laurent. Far from being a merely aesthetic operation, it signalled a clear intention to reposition the house within luxury.

Bellettini quickly understood that her challenge was not exclusively creative. Her first task would be to consolidate the new identity from the business side. Under her leadership, the house underwent a considerable restructuring to strengthen communication between product, press and distribution. Her strategy, shaped by privileged experience across different roles, rested on one of Bellettini’s recurring principles: when a brand’s positioning is clear, the rest of the decisions align organically.

Growth under Bellettini and Slimane was rapid and sustained. Within just a few years, Saint Laurent would surpass the one-billion-euro mark, in her first year, revenues rose by 27 per cent. YSL thus became one of the fastest-growing houses within Kering’s portfolio. This expansion rested on several key pillars: a reading closely aligned with the global market, the development of central categories such as leather goods, and a commercial strategy finely balanced between creativity and financial performance.

Yet the true test arrived in 2016, when Slimane left the creative direction of Saint Laurent. At that point, Bellettini moved quickly to appoint Anthony Vaccarello as his successor. Vaccarello was then a young designer who had spent four years showing his collections in Paris, with a youthful rock-and-roll aesthetic that would prove central at Saint Laurent.

The decision proved remarkably accurate. Saint Laurent maintained an upward trajectory throughout the following decade, eventually tripling its previous growth to 3.3 billion euros. This performance consolidated Bellettini as one of the most influential executives in luxury. In 2023, she was promoted to Deputy CEO of Kering, becoming generally responsible for the development of the group’s brands. From that position, she oversaw houses such as Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen.

Two years later, in September 2025, the group announced her appointment as President and CEO of Gucci. The decision came at a complex moment for the Italian house, parallel to the debut of Demna Gvasalia. Since then, her responsibilities have focused on addressing a commercial slowdown affecting the house’s development. But for Bellettini, it also marked a symbolic return: two decades after her first role at Gucci, she came back to lead the group’s largest brand and face a new phase of reconstruction, carrying with her an incalculable trajectory.