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When thinking about succession planning, it’s easy to paint a picture of something out of HBO’s Succession — sibling rivalry, a founder stepping aside, and the chosen one emerging.
In reality, succession planning in luxury is typically slow, deliberately opaque, and much less theatrical. Yet, it remains one of the most strategically sensitive issues, especially in luxury, where the goal is for a heritage brand to outlive its founders by centuries. “The exercise requires anticipating the company’s future strategic needs, and therefore goes far beyond simply selecting a competent new leader,” says Erell Bauduin, private client partner at law firm Charles Russell Speechlys. “This topic is naturally at the heart of investor expectations. Investors need visibility on the stability of governance and often raise the subject at general meetings, frequently, with a measure of concern.”
In January, investors pressured LVMH for clarity on its succession plan for 76-year-old founder, chair and CEO Bernard Arnault, per Reuters. Also in January, Moncler Group’s Remo Ruffini put the wheels in motion for his succession plan, appointing Bottega Veneta’s Bartolomeo Rongone to take over as CEO, while Ruffini transitions to executive chairperson. In September 2025, Giorgio Armani’s succession plan — which had been kept under wraps until his will was read — revealed his wishes for his heirs to offload a stake, with the business eventually being sold to a strategic or going public.
Clearly, there is no single model for a succession plan. The approach a company takes is shaped by its ownership structure, governance framework, the size and nature of the business, market conditions, and the extent to which a founding family remains involved in its management.
Diagnosing the problem
Before deciding who should succeed the CEO, boards need to be clear about what kind of succession challenge they are facing, experts say. The approach differs fundamentally depending on whether a company is founder-led, family-influenced, publicly listed, or privately owned.
In founder-centric organizations, succession risk is often about overreliance on a single individual, rather than the absence of talent. In publicly listed groups with strong family influence — such as LVMH or Kering — the challenge is balancing long-term control with market expectations around transparency and governance. In private, family-owned businesses, succession is as much about managing family dynamics as it is about leadership capability.
There are many misconceptions about what constitutes a family business, says Cécile de Lisle, executive director of French business school HEC Paris’s Family Business Center. The definition in the EU is that the family must have the majority of voting rights and an involvement of at least one family member in governance, otherwise the family must own at least 25% of voting rights, she says. By this definition, several of luxury’s largest groups — including LVMH and Kering — are not technically family businesses, despite their founding families’ influence. Ferragamo would be a more accurate example of a truly family-owned business.
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