Fashion

High-performing and internationally experienced Business Leader from within the shoe design and manufacturing sector.  Boasts an impressive 20+ year record of success designing and managing the profitable production of shoe collections across all categories for renowned designers and retail market-leaders. Combines high levels of commercial acumen and change management abilities to identify new opportunities for building scale and driving efficiencies.  Capably translates vision into compelling actions to improve production performance, supply chain & profitable revenue growth.  A strong, empowering leader, who leverages deep industry insights and exceptional influencing skills to win confidence at all levels and deliver objectives.

Italy. (www.hugoboss.com)
Joined during a time of scrutiny, reversing Board opinion on the closure of production in Italy & Poland by transforming operations.
• Reported to the Senior Vice President at HQ in Switzerland, Hugo Boss Ticino, contributing to achieve €300m P&L for the shoe/accessory business.
• Led team of 400 in production (Italy & Offshore), stitching (Poland), product development, HR, quality, finance & warehousing.
• Working alongside the SVP, shaped and executed a plan which saved the Company by identifying €multi-million cost efficiencies, transforming the production facility (140 staff), rightsizing the team to 105 and introducing a short work week during 2010 (under contract of solidarity law) which saved €300K labour costs..
• Analysed lines, scrutinising cost across all collections: Exited loss making lines, led price negotiations with offshore factories to meet target price/margin and introduced automatic cutting equipment which saved $250k in cutting dye with Y1 ROI.
• Spearheaded product development in-house and with partners in China & India. developing all plans for product execution, resources, factory allocation, pricing and technical support for factories.
• Leveraged contact network to produce an additional 50-60,000 pairs of shoes in-house for Bata, Baldinini & Bruno Magli.
• Gained expert knowledge of cross-category footwear construction (men's/women's), materials, moulds, last, etc.
• Managed with QA/QC team to keep rejections at an outstandingly low level of between  0.5-0.9% for 5 consecutive years.
• Overall, increased annual revenues from €220m / -€6m EBIT loss to €300m by Y5 with a zero loss in 2012. During tenure enhanced margins from 8% to 34%.

Managing Director Hugo Boss Shoes & Accessories

Joined initially as Director of Footwear Development promoted in 02/2009 to assume additional responsibility for sourcing and QA.
• Reported to the President based HQ in Belgium, and led a team of 400+ product development, sourcing and quality staff, based in business-critical sample rooms in Wenzhou, Xiamen & Dongguan.
• Worked closely with the HQ design team ensuring seasonal product development cycles and samples met customer requirements across the larges production area of Cortina Shoe, delivering 25,000,000 shoes per year.
• Oversaw sourcing teams, leading price negotiations (achieved +7% margins Y1 & +6.5% Y2), setting KPIs, SLAs and objectives to ensure the effective on-time delivery of high quality samples across all categories.
• Undertook cost analysis for all Footwear Development, working closely with procurement to meet buying target prices.
• Managed a Quality Assurance team of 76 across 4 production areas to ensure customer quality SLAs were met.
• Developed an expert knowledge of technical elements of footwear, accessories construction, materials, costing, pattern making, mould engineering, last and various footwear Construction.

General Director, Footwear Development, Sourcing & QA

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Cesare Castellotti: in Ho chi Minh

Cesare Castellotti